Bringing the Dark Past to Light

John-Paul Himka is a professor of history and classics at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians. Joanna Beata Michlic is the director and founder of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust at Brandeis University and is the author of Poland's Threatening Other (Nebraska, 2006).

Despite the Holocaust's profound impact on the history of Eastern Europe, the communist regimes successfully repressed public discourse about and memory of this tragedy. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, however, this has changed. Not only has a wealth of archival sources become available, but there have also been oral history projects and interviews recording the testimonies of eyewitnesses who experienced the Holocaust as children and young adults. Recent political, social, and cultural developments have facilitated a more nuanced and complex understanding of the continuities and discontinuities in representations of the Holocaust. People are beginning to realize the significant role that memory of Holocaust plays in contemporary discussions of national identity in Eastern Europe.

List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction John-Paul Himka and Joanna Beata Michlic1. "Our Conscience Is Clean": Albanian Elites and the Memory of the Holocaust in Postsocialist Albania  Daniel Perez2. The Invisible Genocide: The Holocaust in Belarus  Per Anders Rudling3. Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust in Bosnia and Herzegovina  Francine Friedman4. Debating the Fate of Bulgarian Jews during World War II  Joseph Benatov5. Representations of the Holocaust and Historical Debates in Croatia since 1989  Mark Biondich6. The Sheep of Lidice: The Holocaust and the Construction of Czech National History  Michal Frankl7. Victim of History: Perceptions of the Holocaust in Estonia  Anton Weiss-Wendt8. Holocaust Remembrance in the German Democratic Republic--and Beyond  Peter Monteath9. The Memory of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Hungary  Part 1: The Politics of Holocaust Memory  Paul Hanebrink Part 2: Cinematic Memory of the Holocaust  Catherine Portuges10. The Transformation of Holocaust Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia  Bella Zisere11. Conflicting Memories: The Reception of the Holocaust in Lithuania Saulius Sužied