NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

“ This is Munich all over again!”: Such comparisons between a present situation and a past one (i.e. a historical analogy) are common in public and political discourses. Historical analogies were used for centuries but have received increased interest in the last 50 years from scholars in political science, history, and psychology. Despite existing interdisciplinary exchanges, it remains difficult to identify the variables involved in the phenomenon as different methodologies and conceptualizations are used. Hence, we review part of this voluminous literature and suggest that the various effects related to the use of historical analogies can be grouped under four independent and non-mutually exclusive categories: representing a current situation, defining the roles of current actors, making decisions, and persuading others of a message. We conclude by acknowledging the limits of this current conceptualization and emphasizing its potential as a useful heuristic tool to organize findings in a way that makes them readable across various fields.

This monograph offers the first comprehensive history of the decolonization of the Indonesian economy, a process with a different momentum and timing from the achievement of political independence. It traces the origins of economic decolonization to the late-colonial period, covers developments during the Japanese occupation and the Indonesian Revolution as well as continued operations by Dutch enterprises in Indonesia during the 1950s. The account culminates with the takeover and nationalization of Dutch private enterprises in the late 1950s.

The sixtieth anniversary of the Soviet Army's liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was commemorated on 27 January 2005 by dignitaries who deliberated about what lessons the world should l...

BACKGROUND: Periods of extreme food shortages during war force people to eat food that they normally do not consider edible. The last time that countries in Western Europe experienced severe scarcities was during World War II. The so-called Dutch famine or Hunger Winter (1944-1945) made at least 25,000 victims. The Dutch government took action by opening soup kitchens and providing information on wild plants and other famine food sources in "wartime cookbooks." The Dutch wartime diet has never been examined from an ethnobotanical perspective. METHODS: We interviewed 78 elderly Dutch citizens to verify what they remembered of the consumption of vegetal and fungal famine food during World War II by them and their close surroundings. We asked whether they experienced any adverse effects from consuming famine food plants and how they knew they were edible. We identified plant species mentioned during interviews by their local Dutch names and illustrated field guides and floras. We hypothesized that people living in rural areas consumed more wild species than urban people. A Welch t test was performed to verify whether the number of wild and cultivated species differed between urban and rural citizens. RESULTS: A total number of 38 emergency food species (14 cultivated and 21 wild plants, three wild fungi) were mentioned during interviews. Sugar beets, tulip bulbs, and potato peels were most frequently consumed. Regularly eaten wild species were common nettle, blackberry, and beechnuts. Almost one third of our interviewees explicitly described to have experienced extreme hunger during the war. People from rural areas listed significantly more wild species than urban people. The number of cultivated species consumed by both groups was similar. Negative effects were limited to sore throats and stomachache from the consumption of sugar beets and tulip bulbs. Knowledge on the edibility of famine food was obtained largely by oral transmission; few people remembered the written recipes in wartime cookbooks. CONCLUSION: This research shows that 71 years after the Second World War, knowledge on famine food species, once crucial for people's survival, is still present in the Dutch society. The information on famine food sources supplied by several institutions was not distributed widely. For the necessary revival of famine food knowledge during the 1940s, people needed to consult a small group of elders. Presumed toxicity was a major reason given by our participants to explain why they did not collect wild plants or mushrooms during the war.

Much of the story about the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front? For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies[unk] Might Stalin's regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected - and distorted - every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media's handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.

This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels. Starting at Hindu-Buddhist, Chinese, Islamic, colonial, and prehistoric heritage sites in Indonesia, the focus is on people's encounters and the knowledge exchange taking place across colonial and post-colonial regimes. Objects are followed as they move from their site of origin to other locations, such as the Buddhist statues from Borobudur temple, that were gifted to King Chulalongkorn of Siam. The ways in which the meaning of these objects transformed as they moved away to other sites reveal their role in parallel processes of heritage formation outside Indonesia. Calling attention to the power of the material remains of the past, Marieke Bloembergen and Martijn Eickhoff explore questions of knowledge production, the relationship between heritage and violence, and the role of sites and objects in the creation of national histories.

Even before its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union was engaged in an ambivalent struggle to come to terms with its violent and repressive history. Following the death of Stalin in 1953, entrenched officials attempted to distance themselves from the late dictator without questioning the underlying legitimacy of the Soviet system. At the same time, the Gulag victims to society opened questions about the nature, reality, and mentality of the system that remain contentious to this day. The Gulag Survivor is the first book to examine at length and in-depth the post-camp experience of Stalin's victims and their fate in post-Soviet Russia. As such, it is an essential companion to the classic work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Based on extensive interviews, memoirs, official records, and recently opened archives, The Gulag Survivor describes what survivors experienced when they returned to society, how officials helped or hindered them, and how issues surrounding the existence of the returnees evolved from the fifties up to the present. Adler establishes the social and historical context of the first wave of returnees who were liberated into exile in Stalin's time. She reviews diverse aspects of return including camp culture, family reunion, and the psychological consequences of the Gulag. Adler then focuses on the enduring belief in the Communist Party among some survivors and the association between returnees and the growing dissident movement. She concludes by examining how issues surrounding the survivors reemerged in the eighties and nineties and the impact they had on the failing Soviet system. Written and researched while Russian archives were most available and while there were still survivors to tell their stories, The Gulag Survivor is a groundbreaking and essential work in modern Russian history. It will be read by historians, political scientists, Slavic scholars, and sociologists.

This chapter explores the implications of recent developments in technology and social media, having a significant impact on the way in which young people learn history in schools and outside schools. New technology not only has a positive influence on education but also has unintended negative consequences. Positioning the increasing influence of the internet and social media in history education in a broader discourse about new technology and education, Haydn and Ribbens pay attention to the potentially harmful effects on history education. Furthermore, they focus on the attributes that are helpful to history teachers and students while reflecting on ways in which well-informed use of social media helps to obviate negative consequences of ‘bad’ history. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

It is a commonplace in Genocide Studies to say that ‘Turkey denies the Armenian genocide’. The Turkish state's official policy towards the Armenian genocide was and is indeed characterized by misrepresentation, mystification and manipulation. But when one gauges what place the Armenian genocide occupies in the social memory of Turkish society, even after nearly a century, a different picture emerges. Even though most direct eyewitnesses to the crime have passed away, oral history interviews yield important insights. Elderly Turks and Kurds in Eastern Turkey often hold vivid memories from family members or fellow villagers who witnessed or participated in the genocide. This article is based on interviews conducted with (grand)children of eyewitnesses to the Armenian genocide. The research suggests there is a clash between official state memory and popular social memory: the Turkish government is denying a genocide that its own population remembers.

Post-Soviet Russia’s ambivalent efforts to confront its Stalinist past have generated heated discussion about what should be remembered. Official ambivalence is reflected in school history texts that emphasize Soviet achievements, in commissions that gate-keep archives and historical facts, and in monuments and commemorations. In consequence, the surviving victims of Stalinism are insufficiently acknowledged, let alone compensated. This tension forms the central focus of this article as it explores the individual, public, and official efforts in the aftermath of seven decades of state-sponsored repression to remember, represent and even rehabilitate the Stalinist past. The prevalence of the state-sponsored narrative over the victims’ counter-histories indicates the persistence of a post-Communist repression which is part cause and part effect of the failure/lack of transitional justice mechanisms.

Conventional understandings of genocide are rooted in the ‘Holocaust model’: intense mass killing directed at the immediate destruction of the group. Yet, such conceptions do not encompass cases of so-called “slow-motion” genocide, where the destruction of the group may occur over generations. The destruction of indigenous groups often follows such a pattern. This article examines the case of West Papua with a view to developing a new analytical model distinguishing high-intensity “hot” genocides, motivated by hate and the victims’ threatening nature, with low-intensity “cold genocides,” rooted in victims’ supposed inferiority.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History - Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2009 (New Series)

This article focuses on early archaeological activities on Java between 1800 and 1850 in the context of the multiple regime changes of that period. It engages with the New Imperial History’s network-centred approach by looking at circuits of archaeological knowledge gathering in which not empire, but Java’s ruined Hindu and Buddhist temple sites provide ‘the nodal points’. By tracing how people, objects and ideas travelled via these sites, and between the Netherlands and the colony, the article aims to understand the origins and nature of heritage awareness of the modern colonial state. It argues that this archaeological site-centred approach helps us understand how both European concepts and indigenous appropriations of archaeological sites contributed to the development of heritage awareness. There were complex multilayered power-hierarchies at work at these sites and forms of indigenous agency that we might miss if we follow only empire-centred networks. This article is part of the special issue 'A New Dutch Imperial History'.

only complete collection of writings by Frank, this impressive volume contains three of extant versions of her (including pages that came to light in 1998), Tales from Secret Annex (he lesser known short stories, fables, and personal reminiscences), and Cady s Life (her unfinished novel), along with latest, most definitive scholarly research into Frank s life. Frank s diary has become a modern classic. It stands alone as moving testimony of a young girl whose world collapsed around her in nightmare of Hitler s Final Solution. Published in United States in 1952, Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl has been translated from Dutch into nearly seventy languages, and millions of people world over continue to respond to her extraordinary voice. The Diary of Frank: Revised Critical Edition presents most fascinating, comprehensive study of that diary in existence. Prepared by Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, this monumental work allows reader to compare three versions of diary itself: s original entries; diary as she herself edited it in hiding place of Secret Annex; and version most popularly known, as edited by s father, Otto Frank, and a Dutch publishing house after World War II, when they removed certain family and sexual references. Every aspect of diary including s handwriting and paper used is meticulously examined, providing compelling proof and historical of its poignant testament. Absorbing biographical information on Frank family enhances s personal perceptions, and a summary of critical events during and after family s arrest including how Nazi authorities learned about Franks and their secret hiding places adds a new dimension to this tragic, still resonant story. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs, the Diary of Frank: Revised Critical Edition is an invaluable contribution to our awareness of Holocaust and a stirring tribute to author s impressionable spirit.

It is not difficult to notice that in recent years, the psycho-therapeutic dimension of Buddhist teachings and practices has grown in popularity in North America and Europe, receiving much attentio...

This article offers a critique of the transfer of a technological-scientific paradigm of research infrastructure to the field of the humanities. This critique is informed by our experience of formulating user requirements for the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) project, and especially by a series of interviews we undertook with user-facing archivists working at EHRI partner institutions. We argue that the archival voices we recovered during these interviews articulate a range of concerns that clash with some of the major assumptions which frame current discussions about research infrastructure. In particular, we demonstrate that archival research is currently heavily mediated by archivists. And yet, inter-mediation is a theme that is insufficiently explored in recent theorising about research infrastructure. Contextualising our findings within some recent trends in archival science, we show that an infrastructure such as the EHRI must be build around the complex relationship between scholar, archivist and archive. We conclude by indicating how building infrastructures for humanities research may enable us to fruitfully re-conceptualise and re-energise this relationship by transposing it from the physical world to digital environments.

In recent years digital research has been promoted as a promising innovation in humanities research. New answers to old questions and new questions, according to enthusiastic supporters. In this article the authors address the question what this desired methodological innovation means for historical science. Without denying the benefits of large digital sources, they feel the need to make some comments on the current practice and expectations regarding digital historical research. This article is part of the special issue 'Digital History'.

Referencing insights from Cultural Studies and taking a jazz-age perspective, this essay aims to historicise and ‘locate the popular’ in colonial Indonesia and the Philippines. A new cultural era dawned in the 1920s urban hubs of Southeast Asia, associated with the creation of novel forms of vernacular literature, theatre, music and their consumption via the print press, gramophone, radio broadcasting and cinema. By investigating the complex relationship between the elusive phenomena of modernity, cosmopolitanism and nationalism as articulated by two pioneering artists active in commercial music and theatre, the social significance of popular culture is scrutinised.

The evacuation of Dutch children during the so-called ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944/1945 is one of the canonized stories of the German occupation of the Netherlands. In the most common version of the story, a Dutch interdenominational organization managed to evacuate 40,000 to 50,000 starving children from the urbanized and famished west to the agrarian north-east region of the country, whilst being constantly obstructed by German and Dutch National Socialist authorities. This article challenges this well-known representation of the child evacuations, arguing that it was largely a narrative constructed in the post-war period. Contrary to popular beliefs, this article demonstrates that the evacuations were in fact supported by the German occupier. Most important for the success of the evacuations, however, was the co-operation of tens of thousands of ordinary Dutch citizens, regardless of their religious or political views. These two observations not only challenge Dutch historiography, but also international literature on the presumed causes and effects of the Dutch food crisis.

This research note brings to light important primary sources on Babi Yar: two testimonies written for the NKVD in 1941 by non-Jewish Soviet citizens who had spent time in occupied Kiev. Although problematic in various ways, these testimonies offer details not found elsewhere about the murder of Kiev's Jews. The research note also traces how subsequent NKVD reports and Soviet press articles used the two documents. This close examination reveals editorial cuts, additions, and other changes—and, in one case, a lack of concern with accuracy even when the NKVD passed on the information in a classified report for Stalin.