Jelena Subotić, “Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism”
Yellow Star, Red Star asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled—ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated—throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. As part of accession to the European Union, Jelena Subotić shows, East European states were required to adopt, participate in, and contribute to the established Western narrative of the Holocaust. This requirement created anxiety and resentment in post-communist states: Holocaust memory replaced communist terror as the dominant narrative in Eastern Europe, focusing instead on predominantly Jewish suffering in World War II. Influencing the European Union’s own memory politics and legislation in the process, post-communist states have attempted to reconcile these two memories by pursuing new strategies of Holocaust remembrance. The memory, symbols, and imagery of the Holocaust have been appropriated to represent crimes of communism.
Yellow Star, Red Star presents in-depth accounts of Holocaust remembrance practices in Serbia, Croatia, and Lithuania, and extends the discussion to other East European states. The book demonstrates how countries of the region used Holocaust remembrance as a political strategy to resolve their contemporary “ontological insecurities”—insecurities about their identities, about their international status, and about their relationships with other international actors. As Subotić concludes, Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe has never been about the Holocaust or about the desire to remember the past, whether during communism or in its aftermath. Rather, it has been about managing national identities in a precarious and uncertain world.
“Yellow Star, Red Star is an excellent, in-depth analysis of current political processes afflicting postcommunist Holocaust memory. It should be required reading for anyone studying Eastern Europe, Holocaust memory, and the current rise of ethno-nationalism.”
H-Net:Humanities and Social Sciences
“Jelena Subotic, a professor at Georgia State University, has written a fine, compelling and angry book. In Yellow Star, Red Star, she argues that Holocaust history in post-Communist countries has been ignored, subverted, adapted, adopted and misused and, in the two Balkan countries, used as a prop for creating post-Yugoslav national identities.”
Financial Times
“The complicated politics of memory and commemoration regarding the Holocaust in post-communist Eastern Europe is the subject of Suboti’s thoughtful analysis… Disturbing in its implications, this well-written and reasoned work is required reading for those studying history and memory.”
Choice
“Yellow Star, Red Star approaches Holocaust studies from a post-Communist perspective and is an important contribution to the historical canon.”
Foreword
“Yellow Star, Red Star is a passionate and engaging study of the politics of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe after communism. Jelena Subotić has produced a first-rate piece of scholarship and one that’s refreshingly enjoyable to read.”
Jeffrey Kopstein, University of California, Irvine, author of Intimate Violence
“Jelena Subotić pulls no punches in showing how contemporary problems in Eastern Europe—the rise of the far-right, revival of WWII-era fascist ideologies, emergence of extreme nationalist and populist rhetoric—can be linked to the criminalization of communist and anti-fascist past. This is an outstanding book.”
Jovan Byford, Open University, author of Denial and Repression of Antisemitism
awards
“Yellow Star, Red Star is an excellent, in-depth analysis of current political processes afflicting postcommunist Holocaust memory. It should be required reading for anyone studying Eastern Europe, Holocaust memory, and the current rise of ethno-nationalism.”
H-Net:Humanities and Social Sciences
“Jelena Subotic, a professor at Georgia State University, has written a fine, compelling and angry book. In Yellow Star, Red Star, she argues that Holocaust history in post-Communist countries has been ignored, subverted, adapted, adopted and misused and, in the two Balkan countries, used as a prop for creating post-Yugoslav national identities.”
Financial Times
“The complicated politics of memory and commemoration regarding the Holocaust in post-communist Eastern Europe is the subject of Suboti’s thoughtful analysis… Disturbing in its implications, this well-written and reasoned work is required reading for those studying history and memory.”
Choice
“Yellow Star, Red Star approaches Holocaust studies from a post-Communist perspective and is an important contribution to the historical canon.”
Foreword
“Yellow Star, Red Star is a passionate and engaging study of the politics of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe after communism. Jelena Subotić has produced a first-rate piece of scholarship and one that’s refreshingly enjoyable to read.”
Jeffrey Kopstein, University of California, Irvine, author of Intimate Violence
“Jelena Subotić pulls no punches in showing how contemporary problems in Eastern Europe—the rise of the far-right, revival of WWII-era fascist ideologies, emergence of extreme nationalist and populist rhetoric—can be linked to the criminalization of communist and anti-fascist past. This is an outstanding book.”
Jovan Byford, Open University, author of Denial and Repression of Antisemitism
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Awards
Joseph Rothschild Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies
Best Book Award in European Politics and Society (European Politics and Society Section, American Political Science Association)
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Contents
The Big Gray Truck
1. The Politics of Holocaust Remembrance after Communism
2. At the Belgrade Fairgrounds
3. Croatia’s Islands of Memory
4. The Long Shadows of Vilna
The Stakes of Holocaust Remembrance in the Twenty-First Century
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Jelena Subotić is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is the author of Hijacked Justice and numerous scholarly articles.
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Cornell University Press
Publication date: 12/15/2019
Pages: 264
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