History of the Holocaust as a Political Tool - Contemporary Disputes Surrounding its History

This course aims to introduce students to the process of the evolution of using the Holocaust’s history as a political tool for building a biased representation of these events provided from the Hungarian, the Polish and the Israeli viewpoints. Different historical narratives will be presented and their consequences on the international relations and conflicts from the contemporary perspective will be discussed.

This course will be split up into three units. The following gives a brief overview to each unit:

Unit 1

Policies of the Hungarian government: organisation of the “Hungarian Memorial Holocaust Year 2014”, debate about the Hungarians involvement in the Holocaust, the attempts taken by the Hungarian government to establish a common narrative about the history of the Holocaust in Hungary, the process involved in building both the controversial Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation on Liberty Square in Budapest and the Memorial commemorating the Child Victims of the Holocaust. The response of Hungarian society and the consequences of these events will be discussed.

Unit 2

Political policies created by the current Polish government including: public speeches given by varies different members of the government, changes of the ways of describing history in polish museums, the history and consequences of Poland’s so called Holocaust law, growing nationalism in Polish society.

Unit 3

History of the Holocaust in Israel: the reaction from Israelis on the introduction of Poland’s Holocaust law and the response by the Israeli government to this policy, the role of the media in fuelling the conflict and the process of reaching an agreement between Polish and Israeli governments and the reaction of Israeli society in this process.

1. Kovacs H., Mindler-Steiner U., Hungary and the Distortion of Holocaust History: The Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year

2014, Politics in Central Europe, vol. 11, No 2

2. Segal R., Beyond Holocaust Studies: rethinking the Holocaust in Hungary, Journal of Genocide Research, 2014

3. Jablonka H., Tlamim M., The development of Holocaust consciousness in Israel: The Nuremberg, Kapos, Kastler and

Eichmann Trials, Israel Studies, vol. 8, No 3

Segev T., The Seventh Milion: the Israelis and the Holocaust, Picador, 2000

2. Braham R., The Holocaust in Hungary: Sixty Years Later, Columbia University Press, 2006