2 . Secretary of Defense Lloyd J . Austin III , U . S . Ambassador to France Denise Bauer and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Gen . Mark Milley arrive at the Normandy American Cemetery for events commemorating the 79th anniversary of Operation Overlord and the invasion of Normandy during World War II , June 6 , 2023 . ( DoD photo by Chad J . McNeeley ).
Jews provoked nothing but indifference in postwar Europe and the unique nature of the Shoah was not discussed until the 1970s . It was therefore in the 1970s that a memorial effort was undertaken in France by affixing plaques on schools , for example . However , ideological assumptions had just as much weight . In the Soviet Union and in Poland , the public authorities concealed the Jewish identity of the dead when they did not deny it , both because of a stillvivid anti-Semitism and out of loyalty to a Marxist- Leninist heritage that promoted social class over any other determinant of identity . On a radically different level , West Germany was uncertain about disclosing the fate of fallen soldiers , particularly regarding the distinction to be made between the men of the Wehrmacht and the combatants of the SS . Some theatres of operation posed no problem , such as North Africa . Rommel indeed benefited from his accepted — if not consistent — reputation of having waged a “ war without hate ”, to use the title of his posthumous memoirs . On the other hand , the perpetrators of the plot of 20 July 1944 waited for many years to be placed in the spotlight . In 1956 ,
49 % of the Germans questioned were opposed to giving the name of Stauffenberg to schools . And while five barracks were named after former resistance fighters in 1961 , others were named after Nazi generals , including Eduard Dietl ( one of the Führer ’ s favourite leaders ) and Ludwig Kübler ( sentenced to death in absentia for war crimes in Yugoslavia in 1947 ). Finally , some groups tried to defend the interests of their constituents . In France , those conscripted into the Compulsory Labor Service ( STO ) tried to obtain the title of “ labour deportees ”, which they were refused after long and unsuccessful campaigns .
From this point of view , memories were reconfigured according to sensitivities and changes in the political and geopolitical context . Thus , the fall of the Berlin Wall made it possible to integrate into the collective memory groups that had been ignored , if not persecuted , under Stalinism . Finally , the rapes suffered by German women during the arrival of the Red Army gradually became worthy of mention . Similarly , East German authorities had covered up the hundreds of civilian suicides in the West
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Observing Memories Issue 7