The Cold War influenced how people, societies and states dealt with and understood the Holocaust and its aftereffects. Challenging previous perceptions of the West as the democratic "Free World" that embraced commemoration and the East as totalitarian and repressive, the papers in this conference will examine how political interests influenced commemoration in both East and West. At the same time speakers will show how individual actors carved out space to remember the Holocaust in ways that stood at odds with the dominant narratives. Examining communal, individual and state efforts, from the Soviet Union to the US, from Hungary to France, this conference will provide opportunities to re-evaluate the commonalities, differences and entanglements between Eastern and Western memory of the Holocaust.

Programme