The Holocaust in German and Polish cinema after 1989 and European processes of remembrance

Abstract

The dissertation examines the role of German and Polish feature films in the Europeanization of the construction of the Holocaust memory. The role of the global media representations in providing foundations for a 'transnational Holocaust memory' was highlighted by Natan Sznaider and Daniel Levy (2002; 2006). However, while the authors of Erinnerung im Globalen Zeitalter concentrated on the international resonance of such Holocaust representations as Steven Spielberg‘s 'Schindler‘s List', my aim is to view the Holocaust films selected here primarily from the perspective of the nationally specific historical debates to which they relate. Employing a comparative perspective, I hope to show a dynamic picture of the role of cinema in current public processes of remembrance in Europe, and examine the ways in which different visions of national and European past clash or interact. The conceptual framework of the dissertation is located at the crossroad of the following areas of intellectual debate: the question of possibility of representing the Holocaust in film and other media; the concept of collective memory and the discussion about film as a legitimate media for historical discourse; historical and public confrontation with World War II and the Holocaust in Germany and Poland since 1945, especially after 1989; finally, the debate about a European identity and the place of the Holocaust within it.