Call for Papers:
Holocaust Education in Central and Eastern Europe:
International Pressure, National Policies, and Classroom Practice
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, caught between the ambitions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, became staging grounds for genocide during World War II before falling under Soviet hegemony for nearly a half-century. Although Himmler told a group of SS leaders that the extermination of the Jews was “an unwritten, never-to-be written, glorious page of our history,” such a massive genocide could not be kept wholly secret. Those who carried out the Holocaust did so largely in occupied territories, both with the help of local collaborators and in the face of individual acts of resistance. Nazi racist ideology converged with local currents of anti-Semitism, homophobia, ableism, and contempt for the Roma.
Memories of first-hand experiences from the war were sometimes silenced altogether or passed down only through private channels of family and trusted friends. These personal memories became entangled and complicated both by the grand narratives of Soviet propaganda that celebrated the defeat of fascism and by the suppression of free historical inquiry. However, when the communist bloc crumbled in 1989, another set of collective understandings emerged, emphasizing national suffering under Soviet hegemony and often rejecting ideas of individual responsibility for the Holocaust in favor of narratives of collective, national victimization. These resurgent nationalisms, which privilege the ethnic nation and implicitly exclude the country’s Jewish and Romani minorities, have recently had to confront both the attempts of scholars to investigate the history of the Holocaust in their countries and pressure from the U.S., Western European countries, and Israel to attend to Holocaust education in the region’s state-run schools.
The issue of Holocaust education is, and should be, a subject that arouses great passions. However, there has been a dearth of sober, empirical research into the dynamics of Holocaust education in Central and Eastern Europe, investigating, for example, classroom practices, textbook representations, teacher, student and public attitudes about the Holocaust, national educational policies, the use of museums and extermination camps as education sites, transnational borrowing and lending of educational models and materials, curriculum development, discourse analysis of the rationales for adopting or rejecting expanded Holocaust education materials, the use or non-use of imported or foreign-funded materials, or the efficacy of personal encounters and visits to Israel. The editors of this book invite proposals that investigate these and potentially other relevant topics in Holocaust education in post-socialist Europe. The editors endorse the inclusion of a broad array of methodological and disciplinary approaches.
The book intends in particular to address four areas that need scholarly attention:
1. The role of international pressure and transnational educational networks on Holocaust Education policy in practice in Central and Eastern Europe.
2. The specific local meanings and understandings that the Holocaust has in different regions or countries (for example, how did and does Holocaust education differ in the former West and East Germany, or in the eastern and western parts of Poland that were overrun first by the Soviets and Nazis, respectively.)
3. How Holocaust education is being resisted, embraced or appropriated as a result of larger societal narratives of national victimization and individual or collective responsibility.
4. The extent to which Holocaust education discusses the broad range of groups and individuals targeted by Nazi racist ideology.
Because the book is intended to be accessible both to scholars and to an educated public, chapters are expected to be clearly written without gratuitous use of jargon; scholarly terminology exists for a reason, and should be used whenever needed, but with sufficient explanation to orient readers from outside one’s discipline. In addition, we ask that all contributors make clear their own positionality with respect to the issues they will be addressing. While the editors know that advocates and activists make important and fundamental contributions to research, we do believe that it is essential to be forthcoming about our own perspectives and wish to emphasize that the focus of this volume is on high-quality, original empirical research, and not on explicit advocacy per se. The chapters will be formatted according to APA guidelines.
Proposals should consist of approximately 500 words and should be sent to both editors at the earliest convenience. Advanced drafts of papers are sought by April 1st, 2008. Publication is intended for late 2008.
Please distribute this call to interested colleagues, as appropriate.
Doyle Stevick
University of South Carolina
Deborah Michaels
University of Michigan