The ‘Righteous’ as an Element of Transnational Memory Politics: The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust and the Memory of the Rescue of Jews during the Second World War

Wóycicka, Zofia

doi:2450-8462

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The ‘Righteous’ as an Element of Transnational Memory Politics: The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust and the Memory of the Rescue of Jews during the Second World War Wóycicka, Zofia

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The ‘Righteous’ as an Element of Transnational Memory Politics: The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust and the Memory of the Rescue of Jews during the Second World War

Acta Poloniae Historica T. 125 (2022), In Memory of Professor Włodzimierz Borodziej

Wóycicka, Zofia

Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk Historycznych ; Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Warszawa

2022

s. 133-153

Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust (2000) ; World War, 1939-1945 - Jews - rescue ; Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust ; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - historiography ; transnational memory ; politics of remembrance

In the last two decades, the topic of help given to Jews during the Second World War has experienced an extraordinary boom in Europe and beyond. Transnational and intergovernmental organisations such as the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) have played an essential role in promoting this subject. This paper shows that the first big event to introduce the category of the Righteous into transnational memory politics was the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust (2000). Researchers have described the conference as a significant step toward the ‘institutionalisation of a European memory’ and promoting a self-critical, victim-centred, future-oriented and highly personalised Holocaust remembrance. I argue that it was precisely the universalisation of the Holocaust and the notion of a wide-ranging implication of European societies in the genocide, which paved the way for the rescue narratives. However, as this paper demonstrates, the participants in the conference defined the Righteous differently and invoked them for divergent purposes.

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