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The Holocaust and Cultures of Remembrance in Germany and Austria

The Citizens' Perspective

This project seeks to understand how citizens react to being confronted with different narratives about continued responsibility and the status of different past wrongs.

Knowledge and awareness of the Holocaust is arguably declining, especially among young people, at a time when only very few survivors and witnesses are still alive. At the same time, societies are becoming increasingly diverse, and engagement with colonial pasts and crimes has intensified throughout Europe.

This has led to renewed debate about the established Culture of Remembrance and the way in which the colonial past should be remembered alongside the Holocaust. At their core, these debates are about how the Holocaust can be remembered at time without survivors and how a Culture of Remembrance can be made inclusive in increasingly diverse societies – all with the aim of contributing to an open society without antisemitism and xenophobia. However, what is lacking is an empirical analysis of how citizens react to and make sense of these different narratives, debates, and arguments.

Research objectives

To find out how different framings of collective responsibility of people living in Germany and Austria to remember their countries' violent pasts impact political and social attitudes today.

The project aims to answer the following questions:

  • How and why does the effect of different narratives vary in different societal contexts and among people from different backgrounds?
  • How does exposure to information about multiple historical wrongs - such as the Holocaust and colonial crimes -influences these outcomes?
  • What are different citizens' own expectations and preferences with regard to official commemoration policies and practices concerning the Holocaust and colonial crimes?

The project uses an innovative mixed method approach, combining survey experimental methods from political science with participatory qualitative focus groups and a deep understanding of debates around Culture of Remembrance based on the humanities literature.

The project will also provide a fine-grained picture of how different narratives of the past interact with socialisation experiences, by separately analysing and comparing two countries which succeeded the German Reich, but developed markedly different ways of commemorating the past: Germany and Austria.

For Germany, the project will further differentiate between the western German states and the eastern states formally under communist rule in the German Democratic Republic, where commemorative practices varied significantly from the West. Moreover, the project will shed light on the reactions, attitudes, and preference of people with different backgrounds in terms of age, migration background, and education.

Research team

Partner organisations and sponsors

  • Economics and Social Research Council (funder) The project received an ESRC New Investigator Grant
  • Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung/Federal Agency for Civic Education (partner, Germany)
  • Österreichische Gesellschaft für Politische Bildung/Austrian Society for Civic Education (partner, Austria)