identity without Auschwitz.” Gill’s speech addressed head-on the challenge of continuing to educate about the Holocaust in an age where the contemporary witnesses will soon no longer be among us, equally addressing the rising problems, including in Germany, of right-wing populism and revisionism, not to mention resurging antisemitism.
The answer to these issues, and the emphasis of the conference, continues to be on research and education: there are now numerous institutions dedicated to the study of the Holocaust, along with manifold university professorships and classroom curricula dedicated to this history, in Germany, Austria, Israel, the United States, and elsewhere. The Holocaust is today commemorated officially not only by numerous countries such as Israel and Germany, but also by the UN and the EU. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Holocaust memorial sites great and small scattered across Europe, North America, and elsewhere. In short, the “memory boom”, as it has been called in recent years, shows no immediate signs of abating, and thus stands in perplexing contrast to the troubling reports that the Holocaust is being forgotten among younger generations.