Stated memory

About this book

"Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust investigates Communist Germany's attempt to explain the Holocaust within a discursive framework that was at once German and Marxist. The book probes the contradictions and self deceptions arising from East Germany's official self-understanding as an enlightened, modern society in which Jewishness did not constitute "difference" or otherness. The study examines East German historiography of the Holocaust, including its reflection in schoolbooks; analyzes East German concentration camp memorials; discusses the situation of Jews who remained in East Germany; and surveys East German cinematic and literary responses to the Nazi murder of the Jews. The book shows that regardless of the sincerity of the individuals involved in constructing these various forms of memory, the state attempted to orchestrate Holocaust discourse for its own purposes. It also argues that authors and filmmakers at times undermined the state-sponsored orthodox discourse, and that they created some of the most important postwar German confrontations with the Holocaust."--BOOK JACKET.