Child Survivors and the Dynamics of Holocaust Memory in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia
Child Survivors and the Dynamics of Holocaust Memory in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: Scholars continue to stress that communist regimes suppressed Jewish life and Holocaust memory behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, and as a consequence to believe that they were static and isolated from their evolution in theWest. In this article, I challenge this belief. I analyze the first big gathering of child survivors in Prague and Terezín in the fall of 1986 in order to shed new light on the dynamics of Jewish life and Holocaust memory in communist Czechoslovakia. I stress the cultural activities of Jewish communities, highlight their international contacts, and explain child survivors’ gradual assertion of a distinct generational consciousness and its lasting impact on how the Holocaust has since been represented.

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