Memory and Violence in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XX

Memory and Violence. Local Recollections of Jewish Persecution during the Reichskristallnacht

The authors stress the importance of investigating individual testimonies on the Kristallnacht pogrom as a way to uncover the image of the events in the minds of the witnesses. The text takes as example the recollections of the pogrom in the village of Baisingen (Wuerttemberg) — a case study in the framework of an anthropological project carried out at Tuebingen University, aimed at promoting acceptance of the Nazi period as a part of local history. The dominant tendency of the witnesses was an attitude of non-involvement or indifference in relating the events, and the psychological mechanism of forgetting as a way to avoid remorse and responsibility. The definition of Nazi violence is extended to include bureaucratic institutional behavior, such as ratification of the 1938 anti-Jewish actions by government offices and local authorities.