Holocaust Education and Remembrance

THE HOLOCAUST I N HUNGARY A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

Edited by JUDIT MOLNAR

MONI KA KOVACS

Holocaust Education and Remembrance

"Nations normally readily commemorate their heroes, victories, battles and martyrs but certainly not their great crimes"] is the often quoted statement by James Young. However, Holocaust museums and memorials have been opening one afier the other, with hundreds of films and literary works written on this topic, dozens of education programmes developed and the level of awareness of the Holocaust is much greater than in the period directly following World War 11. The Holocaust has become part of western, collective memory with the descendents of victims, perpetrators and by- standers-all preserving its memory.;!

The word Holocaust, that first spread in the 1970s, has now become an over-used metaphor for lesser or greater human and historical traumas. It is worth mentioning that Kertesz's hero, on returning from the concentration camps, completely rejects that the experience should be compared to hell: "I had nothing at all to say about that as I was not acquainted with hell and couldn't even imagine what that was like. ... I could only imagine a concentration camp, since I was somewhat acquainted

I Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity ajer the Holocaust (Budapest: Helikon, 2001). 2 James E. Young, Witingand Rewriting the Holocaust. Narrativeand the Consequences oflntu-

pretation (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1990); Frank van Vree, "A~uschwin. and the Origins of Contemporary Historical Culture. Memories of World War I1 in a Euro- pean Perspective", in European History: Chalkngefira Common Future, eds. P6k et al. (Ham- burg: Korber Stifiung, 2002), 202-22 1 : Peter Novick, The Holocnrlst and Collectit~e MMP~O?)~: The American Experience (London: Bloomsbury, 1999).

with what that was, but not hell."3 Sixty years later, we do not use the word hell to describe the Holocaust but use it as a metaphor to describe hell created by man.4

Before we speak about Holocaust-related school commemorations, education prog- rammes or exhibitions, it is worth considering why and how the Holocaust has be- come such a central reference point in western thinking for the descendents of sur- vivors, perpetrators and bystanders and we will attempt to do so in the paragraphs that follow. I would fi rst like to attempt to define school education and collective remembrance as well as its relationship to historical science. Then I will consider the so- cial circumstances that led to the Holocaust entering the collective memory in the USA and Western Europe. Finally I will look at the roles fulfilled by commemora- tions and educatioa programmes and how the Holocaust can become part of collec- tive memory in Hungary via official commemorations and education.

I Collective remembrance and the Holocaust

T h e most important function of collective memory is generally described as the role played in the formation and preservation of group identity.5 Individual memory moves away from collective memory as belonging to a group usually involves belonging to relatively small groups of individuals who build up personal relationships and these go on to form larger national groups. It is precisely the function of history and public education-affecting an ever larger stratum-in the 18th and 19th centuries to create and preserve the collective tradition of the national group to provide an institutionali- sed structure and to facilitate the transfer of this tradition.

I History, remembrance and nation are not only form a natural cycle but also support a complementary concentricity, a symbiosis that works on many levels:

3 Imre Kerrksz, Fatelessness, trans. Tim Wilkinson (Vintage International, 2004), 248-249. Cf. Agnes Heller, "A holokauszt ks a nemzedkkek (Holocaust and the Generations), in Auschwitz es a GuLig(Auschwia and Gulag) (Budapest: Mult 6s Jovo, 2002), 71-99; Zs6fia Bin, "A sa'rga csillag mint accessoire" (The Yellow Srar as an Accessoire), Mult esJovo, no. 4 (2003): 128-136. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust, 83-1 49.

5 Dario Paez-Nekane Basabe-Jose Louis Gonzalez, "Social Processes and Collective Me- mory: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Remembering", in Collective Memory of Political Events, eds. James W. Pennebaker-Dario Paez-Bernard Rime (Mahwaj, N. J.: Lawrence E. Ass., 1997), 147-175; Fulbrook, German National Identity; James V. Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering (Cambridge: Cambridge Universiry I'ress, 2002).

scientific and pedagogical, theoretical and practical. The current definition of a na- tion called for its self-justif cation stemming out of a superior illumination of the pa~t.6

At the same time, remembrance in its "natural" form-when it still serves the tra- dition and identity of a relatively small group-and also in its "official" form-when it appears as a national historical tradition-is "ahistorical". I t is "ahistorical" in the sense that it has a tendency for oversimplification, and commitment towards the group as well as the nation. Stressing the present as a continuation of the past, it changes not as a result of historical research but according to the necessities of the present.'

Typically a collective memory, at least a significant collective memory, is under- stood to express some eternal or essential truth about the group-usually tragic. A memory, once established, comes to define that eternal truth, and, along with it, an eternal identity, for the members of the group.8

Opposed to collective remembrance, analytical historical science-theoretically-is capable of handling the contradictions related to the motivations and behaviour of the historical characters. It is conscious of the distance between the present and the past, the closed nature of the past and it changes in the light of new information and not according to the necessities of the presenc.9

National commemorations are obviously the bearers of "official" collective memory while history education in schools is unable to fully commit itself to either the ideal of analytical historical science or the tradition of handing down national history. As Novick says in connection with American history education: historians have been struggling for a century with "the seemingly contradictory demands of history for moral and patriotic indoctrination, and history as objective sciencen.10

According to the above, commemorations connected to the Holocaust and H o b - caust education are primarily approachable with the notions of "official" collective me- mory although recollection of the Holocaust with such a concept at first appears

6 P. Nora, "Emlkkezet ks t6rtenelem kozocr (A helyek problematikija)" (In Berween Re- membrance and History [The Problem of Places]), M i l t PsJovo, no. 4 (2003): 3-17. ' Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering, 1 8-45. 8 Novick, The Holocaust, 4. 9 Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering; Nora, "Emlkkezet ks tijrtknelem kozott".

1 0 Peter Novick. Thdt Nobk Dredm. The "Objective Question "and the American ~istoricalPr0- fission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 70.

inexplicable coming as it does from groups of non-victims.11 The most important motive of the formation of collective memory is the preservation of group identity, and it is a socio-psychological cliche that groups-in just the same way as the indi- vidual-are motivated to preserve a positive identity.

In addition to this, the non-victim groups hardly have any narrative with which the handing down of memories related to the Holocaust would be possible and so we can postulate that the history of the Holocaust does not spontaneously form a tradition. For example: as part of family conversations. The narrative is, after all, the tool with which a shared past and a shared fate can be expressed.

At the same time, the scope of conversations-or the boundaries of social sha- ring-also marks the boundaries of the group. It is not because others would not understand them but because they do not have a shared experiential base (they have no "common experience"-background), and because the referential mechanisms are not accessible to the outsider. . . . Our categorical and group ident.i$cation normally manifest themselves by our acquisition and sharing of the stories saved in the collective memory of the group in question.12

However, in so far as a story-the story of perpetration and non-intemention-can- not be retold, the collective memory is lost along with the disappearance of the ge- neration carrying that memory.

1 1 For the problems of identity among the survivors' descendents caused by the primarily Holocaust-determined Jewish identity see Viktor Karady, "A Shoah, a rendszervdltds is a zsido azonossdgtudat valsaga Magyarorszigon" (The Shoah, the Political Transformation and the Crisis of Jewish Identity in Hungary), in Zriddsag identitcis, tortinelem, ed. Maria M. Kovacs-Yitzhak M. Kashri-Ferenc Eros (Budapest: T-Twins, 1992), 23-46; Viktor brady, Zsiddsri' Eurdpaban a modern korban. Tursadalomtorte'neti vkzht (The Jews of Europe in the Modern Era. A Socio-Historical Outline) (Budapest: ~j Manditum, 2000), 4 17-467; Andrb Kovics, Identitis is etnicitis (Zsido identitasproblimak a hdboru utani Magyar~rsza~on) (Identity and Ethnicity [Problems of Jewish Identity in Post-War Hun- gary]), in Zsiddsa'g identitus, tortinelem, 97-1 14; Andris Kovacs, Zsido csoportok ts iden- titasstratigiak a mai Magyarorszagon (Jewish Groups and Strategies of Identity in Hun- gary Today), in Zsiddk a mai Magyarorsuigon. Az 1999-ben vigzett szocioldgiai filmiris ~redme'n~einek elmzise (Jews in Hungary Today. Analysis of the Results of the 1999 So- ciological Survey), ed. Andris Kovdcs (Budapest: Mult 6s Jovo, 2002), 9-41; Novick, The Holocaust, 278-280.

l 2 Ferenc Pataki, "A kollektiv narrativumok is a csoportidentitds" (Collective Narratives and Group Identity), in KoIIektiv, ta'rsas, tarsahlmi (Collective, Interpersonal, Social), eds. Aniko Kenya-Ildiko Kirily-Peter Bodor-Csaba Plih (Budapest: Akadimiai, 1999), 18 1-1 86.

According to research related to collective commemorations, the need to jointly look back on painful historical events appears in a cycle first 25-30 years afier the event and then again after a similar period.13 This cycle of silence and commemoration has been explained with several possible causes. According to one explanation-the generational hypothesis-those historical events that occurred between the ages of 12-25 have an especially large effect on people's identity and various generations corn- memorate the same historical event in different ways. The reason that certain histori- cal events take centre stage in commemoration after a silence of some 25-30 years is because this amount of time is required for the most sensitive generation-those who were between the ages of 12-25 at the time of the event-to access cultural and financial resources and to commemorate a historical event that is particularly im- portant to it.

According to the other explanation, 25-30 years are needed for the pain resulting from the traumatic event to fade and for those affected to be capable of remembrance. According to Igartua and Paez,l4 who examined the remembrance of the Spanish Civil War, remembrance comes about 25-30 years afier the event because it generally takes that long for the suppression to subside and for those individuals who were responsible for the suppression, the war and other suffering to disappear whether that be socially or physically:

When consideri~ig the cycles of suppression-commemoration, we also have to take into account further factors that are specific in a certain sense. One is the fact that the Holocaust does not only affect the memory of individual nations but is a trauma that reaches beyond the boundaries of nation states. The reason for this is primarily the logic of the Nazi genocide which did not define its victims in terms of national but in terms of "racial" affiliation.

At the same time-possessing the ability to define identity-the Holocaust became an integral part of the Jewish identity not only for the European Diaspora but for Jewish communities who were not directly persecuted by the National Socialists such

13 James W. Pennebaker-Becky L. Banasik, "On the Creation and Maintenance of Collec- tive Memories: History as Social Psychology", in Collective Memory ofPoliticalEvents, 3-21; Martin A. Conway, The Inventory of Experience: Memory and Identity, in Collective Memory of Political Events, 21-47; Howard Schuman-Cheryl Rieger-Vladas Gaidys, "Kollektiv emlikek az Amerikai Egyesiilt hlamokban 6 Liwiniiban" (Collective Memories in the United States and Lithuania), in Tortineti isp~litikaipszichold~ia (~isrorical and Political Sociology), ed. Gyorgy Hunyady (Budapest: Osiris, 1998), 234-252.

' 4 Juanjo Igartua-Dario Paez, Art and Remembering Traumatic Collective Events, in Col- lective Memory of Political Events, 79-1 03.

as for the British, American and Israeli Jews as well. The memory of the Holocaust lived on in the same way for Jewish minorities of unaffected nacions as it did with those of perpetrating and collaborating nacions. Recollection and forgetting of the Holocaust is not an "internal matter" of certain nations, it is also affected by the si- lence-remembrance cycles of other countries.

The fact that they were relatively unaffected meanr [hat it was precisely the Ame- rican, non-victim groups who were the first to elevate the Holocaust and integrate it into non-Jewish collective memory--out of compassion for the victims.

Americans of all sorts came to see themselves as viccims-oppressed by various aspects of modern life. It's been suggested that this has led many gentiles to identify with Jewish viccims of the Holocausc, because those Jews' victimization, unlike their own, was concrete and endowed wich meaning. . . . It would help to explain why giving vicrim identiry cards to visitors at the Washington Holocaust Museum was a smash hit wich the focus groups thac exhibition planners convened in advance of irs opening. 15

Cultural representations from other countries-primarily films and novels-and the established examples of remembrance-memorial days, memorials and museums-ither directly or indirectly influence the remembrance of other nations. American films, for example-like the "soap opera" called Holocaust from the end of the 1970s and Schindleri List from the 1990s-have also had an enormous influence on European representations of the Holocaust despite the fact--or precisely because-the perpetra- tors were "demonised" and no mention was made of the motives of the bystanders.16

This has meant thac, by means ofAmerican cultural works, it also became possible for collaborating nations to remember [he Holocaust via identification wich the viccims and not as the "successors" of the perpetrators and the bystanders. Many claim thac, even in West Germany, the "coming to terms wich the past" affecting a wider level of sociery began as a result of the screening on the Holocaust television series. It would appear thac it is possible to integrate the Holocaust into the collective memory by identifying with the victims for the generation born after the war even in Germany. At the same time, many have raised the point that the masochistic acceptance of the collective guilt-the other route to German "coming to rerms with the pastn-can also be one of the methods of removing responsibility. So, if we take no notice of

' 5 Novick, The Holocrrust, 235. l 6 Ibid., 207-239.

the fact thac there were those who revolted againsr [error or wanted no part of it, we do not need to face the fact that others chose to act differently.17

In connection to colleccive memory, researchers generally emphasise the conti- nuity of memory, whereas the "collective remembrance" of the Holocaust is only pos- sible for the non-vicrim groups if discontinuity is underlined. Disconcinuiry takes NO

forms: with [he group itself which occurs when the descendents of perpetrators and bystanders take on the communiry and the shared identiry of the victims or when they break away from the traditions and history of their own group. When the "studentsn who came onto the political scene in the 1960s and 1970s, the generation born after the war, specracularly broke away from [he values of the previous generation, one of the most important arguments for this breakaway was that their world order had lead to the catastrophe of the Holocaust.~8 "We are all German Jews", was chanted by demonsrrators in the streets of Paris in 1968 when Daniel Cohn-Bendit was expelled from France. 19

In relation to commemoration of the Holocaust for the cyclic nature ofcollective me- mory, we can also compose a further explanation: in as much as a splir occurs bet- ween the generations and the identiry of the generation of the descendents, breaking away from the traditions and values of the former generation takes on increasing importance, a possil?iliry occurs that this form of discontinuity becomes expressible by confronring the sins commitred by the previous generacion. At the same time, the perpetration of these crimes does not become a part of the collective memory but rather [he story of the vicrims through identifying wich them. In this sense, later genartaions can "freely" choose what best suits them from the pasc and are able to choose the idenciry of the vicrims instead of the "hiscory" of the perpetrators and the bystanders.20

This is how the Holocaust was able to become "usable pasc" from the end of the nineteen sixties onwards not only in the European countries which had taken part in Nazi genocide but also in West Germany. "What constitutes a usable past in one sociocultural setting is often quite different from what is needed in another", writes Wertsch.21 When a version of collective memory becomes institutionalised-in the

17 Matchias Heyl, "Nevelks Auschwitzr61, Auschwirz urin" (Teaching about Auschwicz, After Auschwicz), in Holokausztoktrrth h nu tondmih nevelis (Holocaust Education and Promo- ting Autonomy), ed. Monika Kovics (Budapest: Hannah h e n d t Egyesiilet, 2001), 43-63.

18 Vree, "Auschwicz and the Origins". 19 LQd Alain Finkielkrauc, The Imrrginnryjew (Budapest: Mblc i s JGvii, 20011, 26-27. 20 Cf. Agnes Heller, "A holokauszr 6s a nemzedtkek (Holocaust and the ~eneracions) , in

Auschwitz i s a Gukig, 7 1-99. ' 1 Wrrsch , Lhiccs, 4 5 .

form of curricula, museums and memorial days-from then on it takes on an in- dependent life of its own. By the 1970s, the new European and American value sys- tem adopted Auschwitz as the negative symbol of an autonomic, multicultural, democratic society composed as it was from individuals who showed a degree of so- lidarity to one another,22 and this symbol is stronger than ever some sixty years after the Holocaust.

Commemorations and Holocaust education

As we have previously mentioned, remembrance of the Holocaust has formed in a spe- cial way. This can be explained by the fact that, while remembrance of these historical events tends to peak around 25-30 years and then diminish in intensity from then on, only to peak again at one or other large anniversary (but they never exceed the intensity reached after 25-30 years), there is still a great amount of attention paid to the Holocaust even sixty years on. The fact that the Holocaust won a special role from the 1970s in the expression of the forming western value system-as its negative symbol-brought a special educational approach to life that is known as Holocaust education. I will now go on to compare the most important characteristics of Holo- caust remembrance and Holocaust education.

According to Frijda,23 the role of collective remembrance-rather like a funeral- is an expression of the fact that the deceased are still with us in a certain sense and that our emotional relationship with them is still alive. "It would seem that creating or reviving that sence is one of the major functions of commemorations", writes Frijda.24

In watching the presentations, and by performing the ritual acts, one in a sense participates in what happened then. . . . One imagines the fate and feelings of the lost persons, and what they had to go through . . . [commemoration] a means both integrate what has happened and to decrease the distance to the lost indivi- duals. That is, one adds the evencs to one's store of experience, and also appropriates something that belonged to the past and the remembered person. . . . Some of what commemorations seem to do may strike as superstitious or as aspect of magical

22 Vree, "Auschwitz and the Origins". 23 N. H. Frijda, "Commemorating", in Collective Memory of Political Events, 103-131. 24 Ibid., 113, italics mine, M. K.

thinking. . . . commemorations may be experienced as a way to pacify the dead, to prevent them coming back and haunting us.25

Following on from Frijda's above analysis, we can add another "magical" hnction to commemorations, if we research the motivation commemoration of the Holo- caust for the non-victim groups, is the desire for annulation (in the Freudian sense). By identifying with the victims and recalling their suffering, the descendants of the perpetrators and the bystanders are able, in a certain sense to "compensate" for the committed crime: the expulsion of the victims from the national group and their de- livery to the murderers. Commemoration expresses a symbolic "restoring and the de- sire to release themselves from the crime of the perpetrators and to make peace with the victims.

Commemoration can only be interpreted in terms of historical discontinuity: the commemorating collective is only the inheritor of the perpetrators and the bystanders in as much as it has to take on the burden of breaking away from them, in order to "compensate" for their crimes. Therefore, the function of Holocaust commemoration is the remembrance of the victims, the reintegration of their stories into the collec- tive memory and to express that the deceased belong "to us". Commemorations ne- cessarily become ritualised, their essence being the repetition of the same gestures year on year.

The primary function of Holocaust education is to compensate for the fact that Holocaust commemorations-and the collective memory in general-are typically only able to accommodate the history of the victims. I have mentioned earlier of the fact that school history teaching, struggling between collective memory and a n a l p i d historical science, has a tendency towards the bias of the national group and so it is no surprise that the topic of national responsibility for the Holocaust is often lefi out of school course books.26 At the same time, it is because the Holocaust received such an important role in defining those values that are considered to be the under- lying values of Western thought that it became impossible to avoid more in-depth

25 Ibid. 26 For Hungarian textbooks see L6szIo Karsai, "Tankijnpeink a Shoir61" (School Textbooks

About the Shoah), in The Holocaust in Hungary. F z h Ears Later, eds. Randolph L. Bra- ham-Attila Pok (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 717-833; Laszlo Karsai, " ~ j magyar egyetemi is kijzipiskolai tankijnpek a holokausztr61" (New Hungarian University and Secondary School Textbooks on the Holocaust), in ~nulmanyok a Halo- kausztrd (Studies on the Holocaust), vol. 1, ed. Randolph L. Braham (Budapest: Balassi Kiado, 200 1 ), 1 23-1 59; Mbnika Kovics, Treatment ofJewish Themes in Hungarian SchooL (New York: American Jewish Committee, 2000)

consideration of the events. Table 1 summarises comparisons between the main aims and themes of Holocaust commemoration and Holocaust education.

Table 1 Comparison between Holocaust commemoration and Holocaust education

Holocaust remembrance Holocaust education

Aims Remembrance of those Values (prejudices/tolerance, murdered, the recognition totalitarian system/democracy, of the culture of destroyed human rights/violation communities; "overcoming" of human rights, compliance/ anti-Semitism and racism autonomous decisions,

conformity/critical chinking, passivity/action, indifference1 empathy) passed on via the example of the Holocaust.

Characteristic Victims, rescuers, Bystanders; perpetrators; topics, key word personal stories; decisions and choices; autonomy.

anti-Semitism and racism.

Method Memorial days; repeating The Holocaust as "case study": rituals; visiting memorials; non-authoritarian and time- creation of films and consuming classroom-based books about the victims. education or specialised

programmes taught at other institutions of Holocaust education.

Dangers "Blaming the victims" due "Forgetting" the victims. to lack of the necessary background information in cases of exaggerated emotional shock.

The Holocaust found its way into school education in the USA and Western Europe in the 1980s with the aim of "using" it as a negative example in order to Promote the values of democracy. In this regard, neither can Holocausc education be seen as the propagation of analytical historical science in schools because, if that were the case, it would not be able to have a "goal" or a "moral". At the same, neither does it fit into traditional, official, national history curricula representing collective

memory as it is exactly the "establishment" of discontinuity that is the aim; conveying thepost-Holocaust value system. This duality is probably the reason that, where Ho- locaust education has been introduced, it generally "sticks out" from the usual syllabus, either as part of a separate syllabus or part of extra-curricular activities taking place at memorials and in museums.

There are also methodological reasons for Holocaust-education being difficult to

integrate into usual frameworks. Those involved in Holocaust history are confron- ted by the fact that authoritarian education, the normalisation of the ideology of exclusion and propaganda-which was no less that brain washing-all played a very important role in bringing the Nazi regime into power and in iw remaining in power. So it is not surprising that Holocaust-curricula place such great emphasis on their methodology: it is not only the contents of the curricula that is important but rather the approach of promoting critical thinking. Everything that we have taught would become inconceivable if we were to do this with "traditional" methods: if we preach critical thinking and autonomy and that if, at the same time, we suggest that only one view, only one answer is right and that is our own.27

The majority of Western European and American curricula do not place the suffe- ring of the victims at the centre but rather those people whose decisions played some part in allowing the Holocaust to happen: the perpetrators, with special emphasis on the decisions and behaviours of the bystanders. Special attention is given to those who tried to help others, who saved people's lives ofien at the price of risking their own lives. The teaching materials use topics to "illustrate" the Holocaust such as prejudice versus tolerance, totalitarianism versus democracy, the violation of human rights versus the protection of human rights, compliance versus autonomous decisions, conformism versus critical thinking, passivity versus action, indifference versus neutrality.28

Placing the victims at the centre firstly places the emphasis on the fate of the in- dividual as the emphathy being aimed for can only be achieved by getting to know

27 Heyl, "Neveles Auschwiar61, Auschwitz utin"; Gottfried Kossler, "Perspektivavdt6s. Javas- lacok a holokauszc tortinetenek 6s hadsinak ranirisira" (Change of Perspective. Proposals for Teaching the History and Effects of the Holocausc), in Holokausztoktatris isnutondmia'ra nevelis, 73-89; Ido Abram, "Nevelis Auschwitz ucan-kisebb gyerekeknek is!" (Educa- tion after Auschwicz-for Younger Children, too!), in Holokausztoktatris is autoydmia'ra nevelis, 155-161; Chriscer Matrsson, "Holokausztokcads: a sved modell. Az 'El6 Tor- tknelem' program" (Teaching the Holocaust: the Swedish Model. The "Living History" Programme), in Holokausztoktatris is autondrnirira nevelis, 63-73.

28 Stern Scrom, Margot-Martin Sleeper-Mary Johnson, "Facing History and ~urselves", in Holoknrrsztoktntcis /s nnritonomicirn nrvelis, 89- 1 1 3; cri ticisrn in Novick, The Holocaust, 239-264.

the stories of individual people. Such an approach is used in exhibitions about indi- viduals or families such as at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam or at [he Holo- caust Museum in Washington [he exhibition for children called "Daniel's Room". Meeting survivors helps familiarisation with [he fate of individuals (for various age groups, even young school children) as well as the use of literary works designed for children. There are, for example, ac leasc cwo hundred books aimed at children available in Germany.29

T h e "anchoring" of [he meaning of [he Holocausc

Following [he collapse of communism, all public spheres in Hungary-including po- litical life, inscicucions, publishing, public service and popular media alike, as well as in educacion-have seen much more accention received by [he Holocausc than ever before. The global awareness of the Holocausc is equivalent co the European average although chis awareness is more likely due co popular movies rather than the activity of ~ o l o c a u s t education. The consequence of this is that the representation of the Holocaust is heavily dependent on the script of [he current blockbuster that ofcen has litde to say about [he collaborating countries and specifically the Hungarian State and [he responsibility of its leaders and citizens or the face of [he Hungarian victims.

The introduccions of Holocaust Memorial Day in schools in 20001200 1 as well as opening [he Holocaust Memorial Centre are the first sceps cowards conveying know- ledge related co [he Holocausc and [he inscicucionalisacion of commemoration. Ac the same cime, the colleccive "developing" of [he meaning of che Holocausc is needed in order for [he Holocausc co become part of collective memory.

As I have already explained, [he ~o locaus t has no cradicionaised meaning chrough colleccive memory for [he descendants of the non-victim groups. The history of the Ho- locausc would be simply forgotten by [he non-victim groups. Official colleccive me- mory needs inscicutions in order for chose meanings co form chat will go on co make [he Holocausc "usable pasc" as part of collective memory.

Social representation theory uses [he term "anchoring" co describe [he process during which special and unknown ideas are reduced co common categories and concepts. Those concepts and phenomena chat we cannoc "anchor" remain alien, non-existent

*9 Heike Deckerr-Peaceman, "Mit mesilhet a Kisnyuszi a magyar gyerekeknek a holokauszr- rol? A holokauszr tanitasa iltalanos iskolasoknak a gyermekirodalom segirsigivel" (What Can Little Rabbit Tell Hungarian Children About the Holocaust? Teaching the Halo- causr to Primary School Children with [he Help of Children's Books), in Ho[okaz~szt~ktff- t h is autonomin'ra nevelPs, 1 4 1 - 1 5 5.

and also threatening. "Anchoring" leads to the given concept or meaning becoming communicable and it is chrough comrnunicacion chat ic becomes part of the culture of the group.

Representations cannoc be acquired through [he scudy of some explicit belief of knowledge. They form as part of mutual influences or during implicit negocia- [ions as part of conversation in which people are oriented cowards certain symbolic models, ideas and shared values.30

The other process of formation of special representations is "objeccificacion" during which abstract phenomena form into concrete entities.

Collective representation is formed if the term becomes "anchored" and therefore communicable and if it is "objectified" which means chat ic becomes concrete in [he form of collective concepts. Based on the experiences that I have gained during teaching abouc the Holocaust, I would like to propose the hypochesis chat primarily social-scien- tific theories are [he most adequate co "anchor" [he Holocaust and find meaning capable of expressing the importance of the Holocaust in both European history and Euro- pean chinking as well as connecting the Holocaust co [he present after drawing con- clusions in cerms of modern science and humanity creating a "usable pasc" which "normalise" the Holocaust. They "normalise" in che sense chat they emphasises, chat during the Holocaust, such social-psychological processes led to extreme outcomes amidst extreme circumstances that are part of the working of 'hormal"society. As Bauman writes:

T h e Holocaust was not simply an antithesis of modern civilization and every- thing chat-we strongly hope-it represents. We suspect (even though we may not be willing co admic it), tkiac [he Holocaust simply displayed co us another face of that modern society: [he known face of which we had previously so admired.31

"Anchoring" can form through che ceaching of a "normalizing" approach while ar- tistic represencacions can serve as base macerial for "objeccificacion".

The majority of social psychological approaches represent [he "normalising" and generalising view-although noc exclusively-which appear to be especially appro- priate from chis point of view (I have classed "abnormalising" chose approaches chat emphasise the unique characteristics and aspects of the Holocaust). I have collected the "normalising" and "abnormalising" social psychological approaches in the table below

30 Serge Moscovici, Tdr.&lorn-Iilektan (Budapesr: Osiris. 2002). 389. 31 Zygmunt Bauman, A modernitris Ps a holokauszt (Budapest: ~j Mandarum, 2001), 27,28.