Exhumations, Memory, and the Return of Civil War Ghosts in Spain

Francisco Ferrandiz, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

Reframing Mass Violence: Human Rights and Social Memory in Latin America and Southern Europe.

Thursday, May 8
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
1-109 Herbert M Hanson, Jr Hall

Since 2000, the exhumation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and the Post-War years, mostly involving the largely abandoned graves of civilians killed in the Francoist rearguard by paramilitary groups, has become a central element in contemporary social and political debates in the country about the nature of the armed conflict and the dictatorial regime following it. Although exhumations have become a crucial tool for symbolic reparation and have triggered claims for justice for the crimes committed and now unearthed, the social process unleashed by their opening is way larger, and relates to the emergence of a fragmented and heterogeneous political culture focused on the memory of the defeated in the war.

In this talk, the complexity and dynamism of this process is analyzed, including from political and legal initiatives of great social and media impact to local actions on the ground, at times failed, ephemeral or almost imperceptible, but no less crucial. Regional differences, associated to uneven public memory policies, will also be considered.

Organized by the IAS Reframing Mass Violence Research Collaborative. Cosponsored by the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

CHGS partners with international Holocaust institutions for a major conference in Madrid

On November 24-26, 2014, a conference entitled, Bystanders, Rescuers or Perpetrators? The Neutrals and the Shoah - Facts, Myths and Countermyths, will be held at Centro Sefarad-Israel in Madrid, Spain.

This conference is supported by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and sponsored by Centro Sefarad Israel - Madrid; Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies- University of Minnesota; Mémorial de la Shoah - Paris; History Unit of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland - Berne; Topography of Terror Foundation - Berlin; Living History Forum - Stockholm; Memoshoá/Association for the Education and Remembrance of the Holocaust - Lisbon and Tarih Vakfı/History Foundation - Istanbul.

The conveners are calling for scholarly papers on the policies of the neutral countries during the Holocaust and the public debate on them in these countries.

The conference will thus aim at addressing the following issues:

•The neutral countries' reactions to Nazi anti-Jewish policies and their own policies on Jewish refugees;
•Their response to the German ultimatum of 1943 to either repatriate Jews with citizenship from their respective countries who lived in Nazi-occupied Europe or to allow their deportation;
•The genesis and long-lasting effects of "rescue myths", the current state of the discussion regarding the neutral countries' positions during the Holocaust;
•The dealing with the history of the Jewish persecution in state fact-finding commissions and committees of historians;
•Approaches to Holocaust education in neutral countries.
•Holocaust public memory (ceremonies, memorials, museums) and memory politics in neutral countries.

Please send your proposals (up to 350 words) and brief CVs no later than May 25, 2014 to: conference2014@sefarad-israel.es

For more information, please view Call for Papers Bystanders.doc

Alejandro Baer to Present at USHMM Symposium

Alejandro Baer, CHGS will participate in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Symposium, Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust: The Future of the Field
April 28-30, 2013
University of Washington, Seattle



The symposium is part of the year long commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Museum. Co-organized through the Sephardic Studies Initiative of the University of Washington's Samuel & Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program and the Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, this symposium explores the unique history of Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust.

Professor Baer will present The Voids of the Sephard: the Memory of the Holocaust in Spain.



Abstract of Dr. Baer's Paper:
The Holocaust did not take place within Spain's borders. Isolated and detached from the tragedy that consumed the rest of the European continent, Spain at that time was essentially submerged in the trauma of her own Civil War and its aftermath. When Spain finally emerged from the grip of Franco's dictatorship, the country's democracy was rebuilt on the margins of the prevailing European value system, in which the memory of Auschwitz and its ilk occupy a central place. It is only in the last decade, as a consequence of both institutional initiatives and the effects of cultural and educational transnationalization, that Spain has been progressively absorbed into the wider European debate about history, culture, and memory. As a result, discussions about the Holocaust have gained a more significant presence in Spanish public life. The process is an arduous one because it requires Spain to liberate itself from the shackles of its own past, specifically from the mantle of ignorance and prejudice that, until very recently, has covered everything related to Jews.
More information on the symposium can be found by clicking here.

P.h.D. Candidate in Spanish and Portuguese Erma Nezirevic to Present at CHGS Workshop

"Mobile Memories: Collective Memory of Mass Violence in Spain and the (ex) Yugoslavia"
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Friday, March 29, 12:00-1:30 p.m. Room 710 Social Sciences

Spain and (ex)Yugoslavia have followed a seemingly parallel historical path in the twentieth century, including similar experiences of rising nationalisms, civil wars, dictatorships, transitions to democracy, and subsequent struggles over collective memory. Erma examines the interrelations between the collective memories of civil war and mass violence in both places (including new ex-Yugoslav states). Her goal is to explore how collective memory works between them and show how cultural production in one influences the other and vice versa. This exchange, along with their global and multigenerational influences, represents "mobile memories," for which a study of interdisciplinary sources is crucial.

If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.

Remaining Workshop Schedule:

April 11: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (609 Social Sciences)
Matthias Falter, " 'Antifascist Consensus' & the 'Club of Political Correctness': Addressing National Socialism in Austrian Parliamentary Debates on Right-wing Extremism"

April 25: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Hiromi Mizuno, "When Crimes Cannot Be Punished: the Comfort Women Issue and International Human Rights Law"

May 3: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Courtney Gildersleeve

May 9: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Eric Harkleroad

Global Memory of the Holocaust and the Politics of Never Again

Alejandro Baer, Visiting Chair of Qualitative Methods of Social Research, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität-München

Tuesday, March 27
4:00 p.m.
1114 Social Sciences


Recent research on social or collective memory points to the universalization of Holocaust consciousness. According to this research the Holocaust is now also remembered beyond the ethnic boundaries of the Jewish communities or the nations that were responsible for perpetrating it, due in part to the shift in focus from national to cosmopolitan memory cultures. However, such theses pose many open questions in terms of the interpretation of the genocide of the Jews, its actualization as well as contextualization in the history of oppression and crimes against human rights in different countries.
This lecture will present material from a study on Holocaust commemoration ceremonies in Spain, a country still facing the ghosts of its own past. The Spanish case study will lead to a more general reflection on the ongoing tension between particular and universal readings of past violence, the cross-fertilization of memory cultures and the important challenges faced by any individual or institution intending to implement prevention oriented Holocaust and genocide education.
Alejandro Baer is on the sociology faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität-München, where he holds the position of Visiting Chair of Qualitative Methods of Social Research. His areas of research expertise include Social Memory Studies, Sociology of Culture and Religion, Sociology of Modern Judaism, Empirical Research on Anti-Semitism, Qualitative Research Methodologies, and Sociology of Media and Communication.
His publications include, in addition to numerous articles and chapters in English and German, the books Holocausto. Recuerdo y Representación., Madrid: Editorial Losada, 2006, and El testimonio audiovisual. Imagen y memoria del Holocausto, Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), 2005.
He directed the Spanish part of the Shoah Visual Archives project. His recent research includes the uses and abuses of Holocaust history and memory in the Spanish-speaking world as well as the transnationalization of memory. He organizes an annual international scholar's conference on Anti-Semitism, fostering international academic collaborations.
Presented by: The Department of Sociology and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.