Search results

Faced with vast human and economic losses, the small number of Jews in Greece who had survived the Second World War found themselves shortly afterwards in great need of social and financial assistance simply to survive in the post-war world. Although some humanitarian relief had been provided immediately after the end of the once Italian, Bulgarian and German occupations, the reconstruction of Jewish communities and development of a legal framework for property restitution in Greece were long-term processes. This is also true of the post-war German government's provisions regarding compensation for the victims of Nazism. The article analyses Jewish efforts to receive compensation in the wider context of Greek–German relations in case of Salonika, a former metropolis of Sephardic Jews beyond the Balkans. Drawing on rich primary sources, in particularly archive records from the German Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office (PA AA), the article examines the links between humanitarian aid, moral obligations of the political elites, and political as well as economic pragmatism in Greek-German relations on both the national and international levels between the Second World War and 1961, when a bilateral compensation agreement was ratified by both countries.

This article introduces the complex historical and memory landscape of Southeast Europe in connection with the Second World War and its aftermath. In what ways have responses to mass atrocities in the region been shaped, how have they permeated public discourse, and to what extent have they been reflected in the entangled Balkan history? By analysing occupation, genocide, resistance, collaboration, justice, and memory, this introduction lays the ground for exploring the divergent interpretations of events that continue to influence contemporary attitudes toward reconciliation.

The prosecution of Max Merten (1911–1971), the only Nazi war criminal accused of Holocaust involvement in Greece, coincided not only with the start of the Greek-German negotiations on victim compensation but also with the Eichmann trial. In 1959, the Merten Case provoked a massive public backlash, both because of the gravity of his crimes and because of his impending extradition to West Germany. We argue that in the Cold War atmosphere, when the Merten Case attracted international attention, the actions of internal and external power elites in the West deliberately departed from the concept of transitional justice to use this murky affair to their political advantage. Rather than a fair trial, the aim was to obstruct it in the interests of good relations, political self-preservation, and gradual social amnesia about Greek complicity during the German occupation. In contrast, the Eastern Bloc fed the opposite narrative of rotten capitalism by building on its proclaimed struggle against fascism. By combining archival sources and newspaper coverage of the Merten Case on both sides of the East-West conflict, our article explores which mechanisms were mobilised in public and which incentives were carried out behind the scenes. This allows us to examine multidirectional attitudes in a geopolitical sense, with the main aim of showing the discursive imposition of disinformation operating (in)formally through the channels of political institutions during the Cold War.

AbstractThis article explores the political and discursive framing of the emerging project Holocaust Museum of Greece (HMG) based in Thessaloniki (announced in 2013). As an "in situ" Holocaust museum, the HMG could represent an important step toward recognizing Jewish suffering in a country where—compared with the rest of Europe—unprecedentedly high levels of antisemitic attitudes have been recorded over the past decade. Supported by a qualitative media analysis and supplemented with data from our online survey, we explore how HMG stakeholders and potential local visitors reflect on the project. Occurring amid contemporary endeavors in Holocaust commemoration and Greek-German reconciliation, we connect it with their persistence in combating far-right tendencies and antisemitism. Specifically, we investigate whose memory HMG stakeholders aim to display, how they reflect on dominant Greek historical narratives and whether they express a clear memory commitment and a genuine effort to produce a more integrated historical interpretation of the Holocaust in Greece.

AbstractAs nationalist and populist rhetorics have gained momentum in Central and Southeastern Europe, there is an urgency to disentangle the historical narratives and political agendas displayed by national museum paradigms. And yet, equally significant is the urgency to illuminate the strategies and mnemonic devices through which the past is rendered worthy of commemoration, both in those memory cultures that come to life in opposition, or those which are complementary to the national museum's paradigms. In line with these considerations, this special issue addresses the vernacular dimension of public memory, with a special focus on those memory cultures instantiated by mnemonic actors who do not necessarily possess the public epistemic authority to materialize their narratives about violent pasts as official memories.

Dieses Buch bietet einen umfassenden Einblick in die Politik des jugoslawischen Staates gegenüber seinen 15 wichtigsten, offiziell anerkannten, ethnischen Minderheiten. Das bunte ethnische Mosaik, welches Jugoslawien im 20. Jahrhundert gekennzeichnet hat, weckte seit jeher das Interesse der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaft. Mit ihm ging stets die Frage einher, ob und wie ein Staat mit derartigen Voraussetzungen funktionierend und effektiv gestaltet werden könne. Die Autorinnen und Autoren werfen in ihren Fallstudien dabei eine Reihe von Themenfeldern auf, welche die Relevanz der behandelten Minderheitensituation nicht nur für das Verständnis der Geschichte des sozialistischen Jugoslawien, sondern auch von multiethnischen Staaten insgesamt verdeutlichen

Die Krise in Griechenland ist viel mehr als eine bloße Finanzkrise. Die Autoren dieses Sammelbands widmen sich in 28 Beiträgen allen ihren wesentlichen Aspekten. Sie räumen mit auf die Antike fixierten Vorstellungen über das heutige Griechenland auf, gehen kritisch auf Mentalität und staatliche Strukturen in Griechenland ein und stellen Ansätze zur Lösung der noch nicht überwundenen Krise dar. Ruf und Herkunft der Autoren aus vier Ländern und den Fachrichtungen Geschichte, Soziologie, Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Journalismus und Diplomatie garantieren dabei, dass die verschiedensten Sichtweisen berücksichtigt werden. Die leicht verständlichen Beiträge sind eine unersetzliche Quelle für alle, die sich ernsthaft und fundiert mit der Krise in Griechenland – ihren Gründen, Auswirkungen und Lösungsmöglichkeiten – befassen wollen. Das Buch wurde ausgezeichnet mit dem ITB BuchAward 2016 in der Kategorie "Länderwissen – aktuell".