National Policy, Global Memory by Sarah Gensburger

Author:Sarah Gensburger [Gensburger, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Holocaust, Political Science, Public Policy, Cultural Policy, Europe, France
ISBN: 9781785332555
Google: _G4yCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2016-07-01T22:15:34+00:00

Setting up the Righteous as a symbol

The existence and shape of what is not explained by actors’ strategies can be more clearly seen in the fact that the term “Righteous” was also adopted by states with no particular link to the Holocaust.

The celebration of Raoul Wallenberg11 and his increasingly systematic portrayal as a Righteous among the Nations reflect the extent to which the Righteous have been established as a global reference. Until the 1980s, Wallenberg was not really the object of public recognition or homage outside of Sweden, his native country. In October 1981, initially in response to a proposition by a member of Congress, who he had rescued during the war, he was named an honorary citizen of the United States; in 1985 he received a similar distinction in Canada. The fight against communism explains this initial phase—and the untimely disappearance of this Swede apparently illustrates its arbitrariness.

At this point, Raoul Wallenberg was not yet recognized by the Yad Vashem Institute; it did not award him Righteous status until 1996, some ten years later. This exceptionally late nomination reflects a cognitive change and opens a new period for the celebration of this man. From this point onward, many monuments or places were dedicated to him, in Sweden and Hungary but also in Argentina, Australia, the United States, Great Britain, and Russia.12 Although the governments of these states were not responsible for the dedications, they were systematically associated with them. Similarly, several countries issued stamp collections with his image, as was the case in Argentina in 1996 and Uruguay in 2000.

In 2001, Canada, a non-European country not subject to any kind of accusation regarding its possible participation or passivity in connection with the Holocaust, set up a Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Day. Its instigators intended it to “help Canadians understand that he was an international hero who saved thousands of people.”13 On 17 January every year, the Canadian state thus pays “homage to the courage, the strength of character and the humanity of this exceptional being.”

The increase in the number of tributes to Wallenberg since the mid-1990s suggests that the appropriation of the term “Righteous” is not primarily a tool to renew historical memory and to allow the preservation of “national honor.” The commemoration of the Righteous is first and foremost a means by which to propose a behavioral model in keeping with the social norms in place.

The mechanism by which the Righteous have come to symbolically constitute an incarnation of contemporary values can be seen especially clearly in the way the term has been used by several international organizations over the same period.

In May 1999, UNESCO also publically paid homage to Wallenberg. Although the actions of this Righteous individual were briefly presented, and several French Righteous were invited to attend the ceremony, the objective was not the reformulation of the WWII narrative:

With the recent publication of the book Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.: The Power of Non-Violent Action, and with today’s homage to Raoul Wallenberg, UNESCO is preparing

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.