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IHRD The Hague

IHRD The Hague Library

Painful Beginnings: Reconstruction of Jewish Communities after the Holocaust - Prof.András Kovács
38:30

Painful Beginnings: Reconstruction of Jewish Communities after the Holocaust - Prof.András Kovács

The keynote address explores the enduring trauma faced by Holocaust survivors, reflecting on the paradox of remembering and transmitting the irreproducible and incommunicable experience of the concentration camps to future generations. Survivors of concentration camps in Central Europe faced unique and compounding challenges. Upon returning home, they often discovered that their entire families had been annihilated. They encountered devastated communities, looted properties, and pervasive hostility. Despite the abolition of anti-Jewish laws and initial promises of restitution, the political and social systems in post-war Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia failed to deliver meaningful justice. In Czechoslovakia, government decrees labeled a significant portion of surviving Jews as ‘nationally unreliable,’ classifying them as ‘German’ on linguistic grounds and denying them property and citizenship rights. In Poland, societal resistance to returning confiscated Jewish property culminated in anti-Jewish violence. Similarly, in Hungary, restitution laws were inconsistently enforced, and fear of societal backlash discouraged many survivors from reclaiming their property. The lecture underscores how antisemitism, both latent and explicit, shaped post-war policies and social attitudes. Ultimately, the lecture illustrates the enduring legacy of Holocaust trauma, as survivors carried the physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives. It concludes with the haunting observation of Primo Levi: ‘I am back in the camp again, and nothing outside the camp holds any truth.’
A look back at Holocaust Remembrance Day The Hague 2020
06:34

A look back at Holocaust Remembrance Day The Hague 2020

Together with the Municipality of The Hague and the Embassy of Israel in the Netherlands, the Jewish cultural organisation CHAJ has initiated an International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration event, a Lecture, which took place for the second time on Monday the 27th of January 2020 at the Peace Palace’s Academy Building. Philippe Sands delivered a lecture entitled ‘Beyond East West Street,’ reflecting the title of his best-selling book, East West Street. The horrors of the Holocaust were a turning point in history which prompted the World to say, “Never Again.” On the 1st of November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly, in Resolution 60/7, designated the 27th of January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2006 the first IHRD commemoration took place, and since then ceremonies have been held each year at the United Nations Offices in New York and Geneva and in many cities around the world. The Hague is often referred to as the World Capital of International Law and the City of Peace and Justice, so it was deemed appropriate to add the city to the list of places marking IHRD annually. Together with the Municipality of The Hague and the Embassy of Israel in the Netherlands, the Jewish cultural organisation CHAJ has initiated an International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration event, a Lecture, which took place for first time in 2019 at the Peace Palace’s Academy Building. For more information: www.ihrd-thehague.org
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