Thomas Mann ohne Juden. Vergangenheitspolitik im westdeutschen Nachkriegskino

S:I.M.O.N. Issues

S:I.M.O.N. Sections

Editorial

S:I.M.O.N. is an e-journal of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI). It appears twice a year in English and German language. S:I.M.O.N. aims at both a transnational and comparative history of the Holocaust and Jewish Studies in Central and Eastern Europe within the broader contexts of the European history of the 20th and 21st century, including its prehistory, consequences and legacies as well as the history of memory.

S:I.M.O.N. serves as a forum for discussion of various methodological approaches. The journal especially wishes to strengthen the exchange between researchers from different scientific communities and to integrate both the Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust into the different “national” narratives. It also lays a special emphasis on memory studies and the analysis of politics of memory. S:I.M.O.N. uses a double-blind review system, which means that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed from each other hroughout the review process.

Shoah: The journal deals with the history of the Shoah from multidisciplinary, transnational and comparative perspectives. It seeks to integrate studies on Jews as well as on other groups of victims of the Holocaust, especially on Roma, and of so far less researched regions of (East) Central and (South) Eastern Europe.

Intervention. The journal reports on research projects and their transmission into public events. It also informs about current educational and remembrance programs.

Methods. The journal serves as a forum for the discussion of methodological approaches as, for instance, the everyday history, oral history, gender history, the history of violence, anti-Semitism and racism and the theory of memory and memory politics.

DocumentatiON. The journal contributes to critical approaches on using and interpreting archival materials in the 21st century.

Download the current issue S:I.M.O.N. 2017/2.

Articles

Natalia Aleksiun

Pleading for Cadavers. Medical Students at the University of Vienna and the Study of Anatomy

This paper offers a close reading of a memorandum submitted by the medical students at the University of Vienna in January 1924. In the document, the students vividly described a crisis caused by insufficient supply of the so called medical cadavers which disturbed the training of future physicians. In order to solve the crisis effectively, the students pled for introducing new procedures that forced transfer of cadavers of all patients who had passed away either in hospitals, other institutions or private houses who had not been claimed by family members. Remarkably, the 1924 memorandum underscored not only the urgency of the crisis that required an immediate solution but also the non-partisan character of the appeal, signed by the students of the First and Second Institutes of Anatomy "with no difference of party affiliation". It underplayed the presence of anti-Semitism at the University of Vienna and the hostility against visibility of Jewish students at the Medical Department. The paper suggests that the memorandum ought to be understood in the context of the so-called cadaver affair at other universities in Central and Eastern Europe.

SWL-Reader

Karola Fings

Opferkonkurrenzen. Debatten um den Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma und neue Forschungsperspektiven

In 1992, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany decided to dedicate a memorial to the victims of the genocide of Sinti and Roma. The Memorial for the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered under National Socialism by the artist Dani Karavan was inaugurated in October 2012 in the centre of Berlin, near the former Reichstag building. The planning and construction phase spanned two decades, during which many discussions addressed the significance awarded to the Nazi persecution of “gypsies” next to the Holocaust. These discussions reached an apex in a controversy enacted via media between Yehuda Bauer (then the director of the International School for Holocaust Studies in Yad Vashem) and Romani Rose (the head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma). This paper critically reflects the debates in light of new research results on the genocide of Sinti and Roma.

Events

Miloslav Szabó

Ein ‚antislowakischer' Oscar-Film? Zur Darstellung des Holocaust im tschechoslowakischen Film Obchod na korze

During the clerical-fascist Slovak State, "Tóno" Brtko, a docile and poor carpenter, is offered the possibility to 'aryanise' the small Main Street sewing accessories shop of Rozália Lautmannová. Torn between his good-natured principles and his greedy wife Evelyna, he finally agrees to take over the shop by making the deaf and senile lady believe he is her nephew arriving to help her out. Yet he then discovers that the business is bankrupt, and Ms. Lautmannová is only relying on donations from the Jewish community. While letting his wife believe he is making money from the shop, he gradually becomes a supporter of the old lady. More and more, a cordial relationship between the two evolves. When the Slovak authorities finally decide to deport the Jewish population of the small town, Tóno, in a deep conflict with himself and his values, finally opts for hiding Ms. Lautmannová – a decision which turns into tragedy. Obchod na korze won the 'Oscar' for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966. The film was presented on the occasion of a VWI-Visuals presentation on 29 January 2015 in Vienna's Admiralkino.

Thomas Mann is the single best representative of German culture to authenticate the Federal Republic of Germany's foundation narrative. As an exile, he was beyond any suspicion that he might have in any way supported the Nazi regime. As an American residing in Switzerland, he was more easily included in the Western camp than, for example, his brother Heinrich. As a Nobel price winner and internationally respected author, he embodied the German cultural nation. As a member of the grandfathers' generation, he represented a better Germany with traditions that reached far beyond January 1933 – traditions which the Federal Republic wanted to latch onto. The desire to divorce this older tradition from the Nazi past via the person of Thomas Mann is demonstrated more than anything by the author's academic reception. His treatment in popular culture – the transposition of his works into the mass medium film – was obviously even more effective, however. This lecture addressed how the Jewish figures in his novels and novellas were successively made to disappear or vanished in the works' post-war film treatments.