The workshop addresses two pressing questions in contemporary German history that continue to have significant implications in the present. The panel on genocide memory and its discontents examines Germany’s efforts to live up to its postwar maxim, “never again,” the debate about who is to blame for recent rise of antisemitism, and the legacy of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance since 2000. The panel on post-socialist grievances and the far right explores historical factors behind the present popularity of the Alternative for Germany party especially in former East Germany: memorialization struggles related to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s unification and the impact of past legal and economic policies.

Scientific coordination:
Mikko Immanen (University of Helsinki – FBK-ISIG)
Maurizio Cau (FBK-ISIG)

PROGRAM

9:30-10:00 | Welcome Coffee

10:00 | Welcome | Massimo Rospocher (Director ISIG/FBK)

10:05 | Opening words | Mikko Immanen (University of Helsinki – ISIG/FBK)

PANEL 1: GENOCIDE MEMORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

10:15 | Andrew I. Port (Wayne State University)
Timely Reflections on Never Again: German Vergangenheitsbewältigung Before and After October 7

10:45 | Esra Özyürek (University of Cambridge)
Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Post-War Germany – What Changed After October 7?

11:15 | Karolina Stenlund (University of Helsinki)
Memory Regimes and Legal Frames: A Critical History of the IHRA and the Making of Europe’s Holocaust Memory

11:45 | Discussion

12:30-14.00 | Lunch

PANEL 2: POST-SOCIALIST GRIEVANCES AND THE FAR RIGHT

14:00 | Anna Saunders (University of Liverpool)
The Memorialization of 1989/90: Shifting Interpretations of Unity, Democracy and Freedom

14:30 | Sebastian Gehrig (University of Sheffield)
Ideological Blind Spots: Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Law and Xenophobia in the German Democratic Republic

15:00 | Ville Erkkilä (University of Helsinki)
Rural Rights and Political Change: The Reorganization of Property Relations in the German Democratic Republic

15:30 | Discussion

16:15 | Closing remarks: Mikko Immanen