1. This year, Observing Memories wished to address negationism and its evolution in the Europe of today. Despite the historical research that refutes the phenomenon, negationism persists and takes on different forms and in different countries. What keeps it alive? How can it be tackled to bring about its eradication?
I think that negationism in the narrow sense of the term – denying the existence of the gas chambers and thus the genocide of the Jews – has practically vanished from the public arena, with the disappearance of those who were its exponents, the foremost one being Robert Faurisson. Nevertheless, relativism has spread. This is palpable in the health crisis the world is undergoing. All over Europe, anti-vaxxers and anti-health pass advocates have sported yellow stars or hijacked the slogan Arbeit Macht Frei [“ Work sets you free”], which would appear at the entrance of certain concentration camps, such as Auschwitz I. So everyone wishes to be a victim like the Jews during the genocide. All this is very worrying, because, in the end, it is infinitely more widespread, more diffuse and more difficult to counter than negationism.
2. The year 2021 is the 60 th anniversary of the Eichmann trial, a watershed event that, as you explained, marked“ the advent of the witness”, their legitimacy, their recognition and their visibility in the public space. At the beginning of this issue, historian Richard J. Evans tells us about his personal experience in the Irving v Lipstadt trial, during which he wanted to dispense with the voice of the Auschwitz witnesses to protect them and prevent the trial from turning against him, as it did in the Ernst Zündel trial in Canada. What were the consequences of negationism in the era of the witness?
One of the consequences of negationism was the outrage of survivors who had never previously wished to testify. I am thinking in particular of Anne-Lise Stern, who went on to become a
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2. Defendant Adolf Eichmann( inside glass booth) is sentenced to death by the court at the conclusion of the Eichmann Trial. At the left table seated with two persons, the person on the right( with white hair and headphones) is defense counsel Robert Servatius | Israeli GPO photographer. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
INTERVIEW
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