Prof. Claudia Lenz represented the Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies in Oslo, which was established as a result of the restitution of the robbed property of the deported and killed Jews in 1942 and 1943. This defined its mandate to do research and education related to the Holocaust, but also to contemporary minorities. “It's in a way a growing dimension of multi-layeredness,” she notes, “we add on necessary layers as we get more enlightened about the blind spots of national history.” Lea Micha, speaking of Yad Vashem, referred to the polyphony related to the global context of activity and the target audience as well as to the multidirectional memory, “finding the right voice to create connections.”
What are the ways of making the narrative relevant for the target audience? What is your experience in working with diverse groups?
Speaking of the global outreach, Stahnke emphasized that the Holocaust and WWII are considered seminal events in world history; however, it required partners to help determine “what is relevant about the Holocaust for Iranians, Nigerians, people from India or Argentina, or even more and more people in the United States.” Hainetdinov referred to working with diverse target groups and complex topics in Ukraine, also showing the “different models of behavior of the Ukrainian population, ethnic Ukrainians” in the face of the Holocaust. “It is very important for Ukraine to speak on these topics because much of Russian propaganda now is concentrated around one simple thesis that all Ukrainians are Nazis or their sympathizers,” he added.
Prof. Lenz referred to polarized discourses, noting that “weaponization also happens the other way around” and that the “research of antisemitism and Holocaust memory is being weaponized also in order to reduce freedom of speech and stigmatize all kinds of pro-Palestinian engagement.” She argued that it was crucial to create shared space beyond polarization and open the possibility to negotiate contemporary points of reference. Micha followed up on the point by adding that teaching about the Holocaust in the global context entails “trying to avoid all these pitfalls of binary relations.” She also pointed out that “one has to find ways to go closer to the other while keeping one's own integrity and mandate.”
Voices from the audience referred to the marginalized stories and gaps in the memory of the Holocaust, such as the story of Sephardic Jews, as well as the role of museums, memorials, and similar institutions in preserving the memory of the past and building on it in order to face the challenges of the present.
Claudia Lenz emphasized the need to build democratic resilience through exploring the mechanisms of dehumanization and working with moral dilemmas and choices instead of moral imperatives. “This is part of building resilience for situations which might come where people need to make difficult moral choices,” she said. Dmytro Hainetdinov spoke on teaching young generations a responsible attitude towards the past and the present, underlining that “tragic changes in human history began with the idea that difficult questions can be answered in a simple way.” Tad Stahnke spoke on the importance of “another aspect of what made the Holocaust possible, which is the role of ordinary people.” Lea Micha referred to the global points of reference and noted that “it is about listening to each other, and the Holocaust can be a point of reference” for diverse experience groups.∎