Comparative Memory & Justice: The Holocaust and Racial Violence in America November 8 - 9, 2018 010 East Pyne Building Organized by: Jonathon Catlin, Princeton University The Center for Collaborative History https://comparativememory.princeton.edu COMPARATIVE MEMORY AND JUSTICE: THE HOLOCAUST AND RACIAL VIOLENCE IN AMERICA Princeton University Website: https://comparativememory.princeton.edu/ Concluding keynote panel on YouTube: https://youtu.be/B9f3dfT6P44 ABOUT This interdisciplinary symposium will bring together leading scholars from around the world to explore intersections between legacies of racialized historical violence, trauma, and memory across African American, Jewish, and indigenous traditions. The invited scholars have produced pioneering scholarship on these connections from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including history, religion, philosophy, African American studies, Jewish studies, and German studies. The notion of “comparative memory” they will develop is not principally concerned with comparison of historical events. Rather, it suggests that memory of different historical events can be mutually illuminating and reinforcing. By borrowing from and synthesizing different historical cases and cultural traditions, participants will present innovative ways to work through, narrate, creatively represent, and atone for collective crimes, and to ultimately work toward forms of reparation and justice based upon solidarity across conventional social fault lines. This comparative approach re ects the shared imperative, in the words of symposium participant Susan Neiman, “to understand how all kinds of ordinary…people commit murder, whether in Majdanek or in Mississippi,” and to reckon with continuing legacies of racial violence today. The image for this event depicts the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, which was vandalized three days after the “Unite the Right” rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017. This event will bring scholarly perspectives to bear upon this context of ongoing racial violence, but also aims to engage students, faculty, and community members in order to stimulate dialogue on these issues both within the academy and beyond it. The strength of Princeton’s faculties of African American Studies, Judaic Studies, and History, as well as the historical consciousness stimulated by the Princeton and Slavery Project, make Princeton an ideal setting for this event. The Facebook page for this event is linked here. This symposium is made possible by our generous cosponsors: Center for Collaborative History Department of Art & Archaeology Department of Comparative Literature Department of English Department of French & Italian Department of German Department of Religion Humanities Council Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities at Princeton (IHUM) Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) Program in American Studies Program in European Cultural Studies Program in Judaic Studies University Center for Human Values $!,/17!!$/:"201 ©1 $$ 201"/ 7$" " !/  ,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw $"/" 0 2 1  2 / 0  :ª  " $ 7  ! /‡ª€‡ ƒ©‚h¯]¯¾ƒ©‚„h¯]¯Ý$hJ^R^P/J]=kZl `F=nR`^©€=ln,w^J=[[ `^=nQ`^ =n[R^»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ ƒ©‚„h¯]¯¾ ©€„h¯]¯Ý,=^J[€Ý^nJklJFnR`^l`OOkRF=^]JkRF=^=^HJuRlQ!J]`kw `F=nR`^©€=ln,w^J=[[ Æ/J=HR^PnQJ RE[JR^nQJ/=FR=[ `]E=n<`^J©,k`hQJnRF7`RFJlR^1R]Jl`O `^|RFnOk`]88n`nQJ RtR[/RPQnl !`tJ]J^nǾË0ol=^^=QJlFQJ[»=kn]`onQ `[[JPJ¼ ÆR] k`uªOkRF=^]JkRF=^lª=^HJul©^^=[wlRl`O]JkRF=^"Julh=hJkl=OnJknQJ"okJ]EJkP=ulǾË8R[[= !¯`Q^l`^»2^RtJklRnw`O!RllRllRhhR¼ Æk`]]]Jnn1R[[n`J[J^=`^=l¿/`lJ^zuJRP©1QJ,`uJk`OnQJ^nR]=nJ0n`kwR^$ok0J=kFQ`k1konQ=^H !J=^R^PÇ¾Ë QkRln`hQJk¯ J^l`^»"`knQuJlnJk^2^RtJklRnw¼ Q=Rk©/Q=Jw^^ =k^Jl»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼  /   :ª  " $ 7  ! /ˆª€‡ €©€„=¯]¯¾€h¯]¯Ý=tRl J^nJk0J]R^=k `F=nR`^©€€RFZR^l`^=[[ ÆJ`Pk=hQRJl`OolnRFJ©0oP=]`ª=^HlEJkPª=^HnQJ[[RJH8=k kR]Jl,k`Pk=]ª€ˆƒ„¿€ˆ„‡Ç¾Ëk=^zRlZ= 0Jk=hQR]» `ln`^ `[[JPJ¼ `]]J^n=n`k©ËË0QJ[H`^=k`^»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ 1`kJFJRtJ=F`hw`OnQRlhkJ¿FRkFo[=nJHh=hJk=^Hn`/07,ªJ]=R[J^^ROJk`[H]=^=nYQ`o[JßhkR^FJn`^¯JHo €h¯]¯Ë¾€h¯]¯Ýo^FQ `F=nR`^©=ln,w^J=[[ª`uJkwhQJ^ €h¯]¯¾©ƒ„h¯]¯Ý,=^J[ËÝJk]=^w=l=!`HJ[°1=ZR^P`u^=^H,onnR^P2h!`^o]J^nl `F=nR`^©€=ln,w^J=[[ ÆJ=k^R^POk`]nQJJk]=^lǾË0ol=^"JR]=^»R^lnJR^`ko]ª,`nlH=]¼ Æ8Q=n =^=^Po=PJ``k!`^o]J^nl°1QJ2^RnJH0n=nJlªJk]=^wª=^HEJw`^HǾË:o[Rw=`]lZ=»=kn]`onQ `[[JPJ¼ Æ1QJ1k=^lPkJllR`^`O,=knRFRh=n`kw `]]J]`k=nR`^R^Jk]=^w=^HnQJ2^RnJH0n=nJlǾËJ^^ROJk[[J^»:=[J 2^RtJklRnw¼ Q=Rk©^l`^/=ER^E=FQ»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ ©ƒ„h¯]¯¾‚h¯]¯Ý kJ=Z `F=nR`^©=ln,w^J=[[ª`uJkwhQJ^ ‚h¯]¯¾ƒ©‚h¯]¯Ý,=^J[‚Ý^nJklJFnR^PJP=FRJl©1QJ`[`F=oln=^H/=FR=[7R`[J^FJR^]JkRF= `F=nR`^©€=ln,w^J=[[ Æ`unQJQJnn` JF=]J [=FZǾË!RnFQJ[[o^JRJk»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ ÆÈn[=l`O1Jkk`kÉ©!=hhR^P0JPkJP=nJHRln`kRJl`O/=FR=[7R`[J^FJR^1Jv=lǾË!`^RF=Ë!o_`zË!=knR^Jz» k`u^ 2^RtJklRnw¼ ÆRln`kw`O7R`[J^FJ=^HnQJ7R`[J^FJ`ORln`kw© Q=[[J^PJlR^"=kk=nR^PnQJRln`kw`O"=nRtJ]JkRF=^ J^`FRHJǾË=k[=F`Ew» `[o]ER=2^RtJklRnw¼ Q=Rk©!=nnQJu=kh»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ ƒ©‚h¯]¯¾ƒ©ƒ„h¯]¯Ý kJ=Z `F=nR`^©=ln,w^J=[[ª`uJkwhQJ^ ƒ©ƒ„h¯]¯¾ ©‚h¯]¯Ý,=^J[ƒÝ=kJ8J `]h=kJRln`kRF=[nk`FRnRJl° `]h=k=nRtJhhk`=FQJlOk`] J^`FRHJ0noHRJln`Ë!o[nRHRkJFnR`^=[!J]`kw `F=nR`^©€=ln,w^J=[[ Æ1QJ!`k=[8Rn^JllªnQJ`[`F=oln,=k=HRP]ª=^H Jw`^HǾ =k`[w^¯J=^Ë»:=[J2^RtJklRnw¼ Æ2^lhJ=Z=E[J¯©/=FJ=^H!J]`kwR^nQJ^O`k]=nR`^PJǾË"=`]R!=^HJ[»JEkJu2^RtJklRnw`OJkol=[J]¼ Æ8`kZR^PnQk`oPQnQJ,=ln=l^n=^P[JHRln`kRJl©J^`FRHJOk`]]hRkJn`olFQuRnz=^H Jw`^HǾ¯ËRkZ !`lJl»2^RtJklRnw`O0wH^Jw¼ /Jlh`^lJEw0ol=^"JR]=^»R^lnJR^`ko]ª,`nlH=]¼ Q=Rk©1Q`]=l1kJzRlJ»,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw¼ ©‚h¯]¯¾‡h¯]¯Ý [`lR^P/JFJhnR`^ `F=nR`^©=ln,w^J=[[ª2hhJkwhQJ^ $!,/17!!$/:"201 © 1$$ 201"/ 7$"  "!/  ,kR^FJn`^2^RtJklRnw  01/ 10 J^^ROJk[[J^»:=[J2^RtJklRnw¼¾Ë1QJ1k=^lPkJllR`^`O,=knRFRh=n`kw `]]J]`k=nR`^R^Jk]=^w=^H nQJ2¯0¯ 1QRln=[ZQ=lnu``EYJFnRtJl¯RklnªRnlZJnFQJlnQJkJFJ^nQRln`kw`O=ZR^H`OHJFJ^nk=[RzJHªh=knRFRh=n`kw F`]]J]`k=nRtJhk=FnRFJnQ=nR^RnR=[[wHJtJ[`hJH=k`o^H[=nJ¿nuJ^nRJnQ¿FJ^nokwJk]=^]J]`kR=[lª `[`F=oln=^H`nQJkuRlJ¯ wnQJJ=k[wnuJ^nw¿{klnFJ^nokwªnQRl]^J]`^RFlnw[JQ=H]=HJRnlu=wn`nQJ 2^RnJH0n=nJl=^HQ=lEJJ^]`ER[RzJH]`ln`OnJ^=l=]J=^n`F`]]J]`k=nJk=FR=[tR`[J^FJ=^HnQJtR`[=nR`^ `OQo]=^kRPQnl¯1QRlh`knR`^`OnQJn=[ZuR[[kJ[=nJJk]=^]`^o]J^nl[RZJ`lJhQ JowlɆ$=Zl»€ˆ‡¿ €ˆ‡†¼=^Ho^nJkJ]^RPÉl0no]E[R^P0n`^Jl»€ˆˆƒ¿hkJlJ^n¼n`]JkRF=^hk`YJFnl[RZJnQJ$^J!R[[R`^ `^Jl R^ln=[[=nR`^R^8=lQR^Pn`^¯ ¯»€‚¼´nQJ0n`hhR^P0n`^Jl=^H8Rn^Jll0n`^JlR^"Ju^P[=^H»€†¿ hkJlJ^n¼´=^HnQJjo=[olnRFJ^RnR=nRtJÉl^Ju]`^o]J^nn`[w^FQR^PtRFnR]lª1QJ"=nR`^=[!J]`kR=[O`k ,J=FJ=^HolnRFJªR^!`^nP`]Jkw[=E=]=»€‡¼¯]=w=[l`Hk=u[R^Zln`F`^nJ]h`k=^J`olhk`YJFnluRnQ =^=[`P`ol=]ERnR`^lR^h[=FJl=lHRln=^n=l/ollR==^HkPJ^nR^=¯1QJlJF`^Hn=lZ`OnQRln=[ZRln`lZJnFQ`on nQJ^`k]=nRtJ=]ERnR`^l`OloFQhk`YJFnlR^`kHJkn`HRlnR^PoRlQnQJ]Ok`]HJFJ^nk=[RzJH]`^o]J^nl`OnQJ ^R^JnJJ^nQ=^HJ=k[wnuJ^nRJnQFJ^nokRJl¯JFJ^nk=[Rz=nR`^R^nQJ[=nJnuJ^nRJnQ=^HnuJ^nw¿{klnFJ^nokRJl h`llJllJl=^Jvh[RFRn[wnk=^lPkJllRtJFQ=k=FnJknQ=n]=ZJlRnloRn=E[J^`n`^[wO`kRlloR^P=E`[HFkRnRjoJ`O k=FR=[tR`[J^FJEon=[l`O`kR^tRnR^P]JkRF=^FRnRzJ^ln`h=knRFRh=nJF`^lFR`ol[wR^nQ=n=Fn`OFkRnRjoJ¯ QkRln`hQJk J^l`^»"`knQuJlnJk^2^RtJklRnw¼¾Ëk`]]]Jnn1R[[n`J[J^=`^=l¿/`lJ^zuJRP©1QJ ,`uJk`OnQJ^nR]=nJ0n`kwR^$ok0J=kFQ`k1konQ=^H!J=^R^P nQ=lEJJ^lQ`u^nQ=nªR^hk`FJllR^PR^O`k]=nR`^`^F=lo=[nRJlªnQJhoE[RFJvhJkRJ^FJluQ=n,=o[0n`tRFQ=l F=[[JHÆO=HR^PF`]h=llR`^Ç=lnQJ^o]EJk`OkJh`knJHHJ=nQlR^FkJ=lJl¯^JOOJFnªln=nRlnRFlln=^H=l=hk`vw O`kQo]=^Rnw¯1QJkJlo[nF=^EJ=O`k]`OÆhlwFQRF^o]ER^PªÇ=F`^FJhnJln=E[RlQJHEw/`EJkn=wROn`^uRnQ QRlu`kZ`^Rk`lQR]=ª=^H]`kJkJFJ^n[w=hh[RJHEw`nQJkkJlJ=kFQJklR^u=wlnQ=nF=^QJ[holo^HJkln=^H hoE[RF=h=nQwkJP=kHR^PJnQ^`tR`[J^FJohn`=^HR^F[oHR^PPJ^`FRHJ¯l=F`^lJjoJ^FJ`OnQRlhk`FJllªuJ ]RllnQJ[=kPJk]J=^R^P`OnQJlJnk=PRFJtJ^nl¯[nJk^=nRtJ[wªhJ`h[JF=kJ=E`onR^HRtRHo=[l=^HF`^^JFnuRnQ nQJF`]hJ[[R^P^=nokJ`OnQJRkhJkl`^=[QRln`kRJl=^HnQJt=[oJ`OnQJRk[RtJl¯1QJwF=^=[l`HJtJ[`h=HJJhJk =hhkJFR=nR`^`OnQJO=FnnQ=nnQJlJhJkl`^=[ln`kRJlQ=tJ=t=[oJ¿=HHJHJOOJFnªkJhkJlJ^nR^Pl`]JnQR^P]oFQ [=kPJk¯1=ZR^PnQJlJF`^lRHJk=nR`^lOoknQJk=^HtRJuR^PnQJ]R^nQJF`^nJvn`OFkRnRF=[k=FJnQJ`kwª^=kk=nRtJ nQJ`kwª=^H]JHR=lnoHRJlª[J^Hllohh`knn`nQJtRJunQ=nnQJR^nR]=nJln`kwF=^lJktJ=l=^R]h=FnR^Ph`R^n`O J^nkwn`hoE[RFo^HJkln=^HR^P`OnQJl`FR=[F=olJl`OnQJ`hh`lRnR`^=[F`^lnkoFnR`^`ORHJ^nRnwªnQJ=[[`F=nR`^`O h[=FJªhkRtR[JPJª=^Hh`uJkR^l`FRJnwª=^HnQJtR`[J^nJ^O`kFJ]J^n`OnQRll`FR=[F`^lnkoFn¯1QJln`kRJl`O ]]Jnn1R[[»=€ƒ¿wJ=k¿`[HOkRF=^]JkRF=^uQ`u=lEkon=[[w[w^FQJHR^€ˆ„„¼ª=^HJ[J^=`^=l¿/`lJ^zuJRP »=loktRt`k`OnQJ,º=lzaukEJRnl[=PJkªOJ=nokJHR^0FQR^H[JkÉlRln¼hk`tRHJR^nR]=nJF`^^JFnR`^ln`[=kPJk ]J=^R^P`kP=^RF=[[wnQk`oPQnQJRk^=kk=nRtJl¯ wu=w`OnQJlJF`^^JFnR`^lªuJEJPR^n`kJF`P^RzJk=FRl]=^H =^nRlJ]RnRl]=lJ[J]J^nl`O=^R^nJ^nR`^=[hk`FJll`O=FjoRkR^P=^H]=R^n=R^R^Ph`uJk¯"=kk=nRtJlnQol`hJ^ ohnQJh`llRER[Rnw`OHJtJ[`hR^PhoE[RF=hhkJFR=nR`^`O`ok`^P`R^Pk`[JR^nQJF`^lnkoFnR`^=^HJ^O`kFJ]J^n`O nQJlJhk`FJllJlª=^HªhJkQ=hlªJtJ^=lJ^lJ`O`okR^HRtRHo=[kJlh`^lRER[Rnwn`JOOJFnh`lRnRtJFQ=^PJ¯ =k`[w^¯J=^»:=[J2^RtJklRnw¼¾1QJ!`k=[8Rn^JllªnQJ`[`F=oln,=k=HRP]ª=^H Jw`^H !wF`]]J^nluR[[=HHkJllQ`unQJ`[`F=olnEJF=]J=ln=^H¿R^O`k8JlnJk^]`k=[F`^lFRJ^FJ=^HuRnQuQ=n F`^lJjoJ^FJl¯1QRlRl=F`]h[Jvn`hRFªEonuR[[]=ZJ=OJuF[=R]lE=lJH`^=[`^PJknJk]=llJll]J^n`OnQJ ÆuRn^Jlln`PJ^`FRHJÇnQ=nJ]JkPJHR^nQJ€ˆ†l=lnQJJuRlQ`[`F=olnloktRt`k¯1QJÆuRn^JllÇRl^`u J]E`HRJHEw=PJ^JkRFÆtRFnR]Ç`OnJ^R^t`ZJHEwQo]=^kRPQnlÉ`kP=^Rz=nR`^ln`kJhkJlJ^nP[`E=[kJlh`^lRER[Rnw O`ktRFnR]lª=^HEwF`oknln`[JPRnR]=nJnQJRkhokloRn`OhJkhJnk=n`kl¯1QJlw]E`[`OnQJ]`k=[uRn^JllHJ{^Jl uQ`lJJvhJkRJ^FJF=^[JPRnR]=nJ[wkJhkJlJ^nPJ^`FRH=[tR`[J^FJ=^HRnlk=t=PJl¯nlQRln`kwª=^Hh=knRFo[=k[w nQJ`FF[olR`^`OtRFnR]l`OF`[`^R=[tR`[J^FJª=[[`uloln`Jvh[`kJR^uQRFQu=wlnQJOk=]Ju`kZlO`k o^HJkln=^HR^P]=ll]okHJkuJkJ=^H=kJlQ=hJHEw8JlnJk^k=FRl]¯1QJ]`k=[uRn^Jll=[[`uloln` F`^nJvno=[RzJQ`ul`]JJvhJkRJ^FJl`O]=ll]okHJk½Eon^`n`nQJkl½EJF`]J`EYJFnl`OR^nJk^=nR`^=[ F`^lJ^lol=^HJvJ]h[=kw`Oo^RtJkl=[Qo]=^loOOJkR^P¯ 0ol=^^=QJlFQJ[»=kn]`onQ `[[JPJ¼¾/J=HR^PnQJ RE[JR^nQJ/=FR=[ `]E=n<`^J©,k`hQJnRF7`RFJl R^1R]Jl`O `^|RFnOk`]88n`nQJ RtR[/RPQnl!`tJ]J^n 1QJhkR]=kwOo^FnR`^`OkJ[RPR`^Rl]J]`kw©n`kJ]J]EJkRl=FJ^nk=[F`]]=^H`O0FkRhnokJªkJQJ=klJHR^ [RnokPwªJ^=FnJHR^kRno=[hk=FnRFJl¯nnQJl=]JnR]JªkJ[RPR`^F=^=[l`EJ=h`uJkOo[tJQRF[JO`kk=HRF=[FQ=^PJ´ kJ]J]EJkR^PRl^`nnQJl=]J=lln=P^=nR^P¯8RnQR^nQJ RE[JªnQJlnk`^PJlnERE[RF=[t`RFJO`kk=FR=[YolnRFJ F`]JlOk`]nQJhk`hQJnlª=luRn^JllJHR^nQJ RtR[/RPQnl!`tJ]J^n¯:JnnQJhk`hQJnluJkJ^`nR^t`ZJHR^ Jk]=^wHokR^PJk=l`Ok=FRln^=nR`^=[Rl]ªln=knR^PR^88¯8QR[JJk]=^JuRlQnQJ`[`PR=^lRHJ^nR{JH oH=Rl]=l=kJ[RPR`^`OÆJnQRF=[]`^`nQJRl]ªÇk``nJHR^hk`hQJnRFnJ=FQR^PlªJk]=^,k`nJln=^nnQJ`[`PR=^l HJ^RPk=nJHnQJhk`hQJnl=lJFln=nRFl»o^ZJ[ªc[lFQJkªoQ]¼`kkok=[^=ROl»1k`J[nlFQ¼uQ`lJ]Jll=PJu=l R^F`]h=nRE[JuRnQ]`HJk^h`[RnRFl¯1QJ]JkRF=^nQJ`[`PRF=[nk=HRnR`^ªEwF`^nk=lnªJ]Ek=FJHnQJhk`hQJnl¯ 1QJRkFQ=[[J^PJn`h`uJkOo[[J=HJkl=^HnQJRkR^lRlnJ^FJ`^nQJhkR]=Fw`OYolnRFJEJF=]JnQJFJ^nk=[]J]`kw `OnQJE[=FZFQokFQªnQJ0`FR=[`lhJ[]`tJ]J^nª"RJEoQkR=^Rk`^wª=^H/JO`k]=^HkJ^Ju=[oH=Rl]¯ !`kJ`tJkªnQJhk`hQJnllJktJH=lnQJE=lRl`OJFo]J^Rl]EJnuJJ^ QkRlnR=^l=^HJulª=^HEJnuJJ^OkRF=^¿ ]JkRF=^l=^HJuRlQ]JkRF=^lª=lJvJ]h[R{JHEwnQJkJ[=nR`^lQRhlEJnuJJ^/JR^Q`[H"RJEoQk=^H Ek=Q=]`lQo=JlFQJ[ª=^HJlFQJ[=^H!=knR^onQJkR^Pk¯ =k[=F`Ew» `[o]ER=2^RtJklRnw¼¾Rln`kw`O7R`[J^FJ=^HnQJ7R`[J^FJ`ORln`kw© Q=[[J^PJlR^ "=kk=nR^PnQJRln`kw`O"=nRtJ]JkRF=^J^`FRHJ J^`FRHJ0noHRJlQ=lR^FkJ=lR^P[wEJJ^uR[[R^Pn`Jvh[`kJPJ^`FRHJ=l=hQJ^`]J^`^nQ=nn``Zh[=FJ^`n`^[w R^HRln=^n[`F=[Jl[RZJ,`[=^Hª =]E`HR=ª`k/u=^H=ªEon=[l`QJkJR^nQJ2^RnJH0n=nJl¯1QRl^JulFQ`[=klQRhª Q`uJtJkªJvRlnlR^=^=l`]JuQ=no^J=lwkJ[=nR`^lQRhuRnQkJFJ^nnkJ^HlR^"=nRtJ]JkRF=^QRln`kwnQ=n J]hQ=lRzJnQJk`[J`OR^HRPJ^`ol=PJ^FwªhJklhJFnRtJlª=^HJhRlnJ]`[`PRJlR^o^HJkln=^HR^PnQJh=ln¯!w h=hJk=nnJ]hnln`olJnQRlnJ^lR`^EJnuJJ^O`FolR^P`^JRnQJkhJkhJnk=n`kl`ktRFnR]ln`nQR^ZnQk`oPQnQJ FQ=[[J^PJl`O^=kk=nR^PJhRl`HJl`OJvnkJ]JtR`[J^FJ]`kJPJ^Jk=[[w¯ 8R[[=`Q^l`^»2^RtJklRnw`O!RllRllRhhR¼¾ËR] k`uªOkRF=^]JkRF=^lª=^HJul©^^=[wlRl`O ]JkRF=^"Julh=hJkl=OnJknQJ"okJ]EJkP=ul /=FRl]Rl=H`]R^=^nnk`hJnQ=nJ]JkPJluQJ^uJJv=]R^JnQJnkJ=n]J^n`OJuRlQhJ`h[J=^HOkRF=^ ]JkRF=^lHokR^PnQJnuJ^nRJnQFJ^nokw¯1QRlh=hJk=^=[wzJlQ`uO`okJnQ^RF^Julh=hJkl=^Hnu` ]=R^lnkJ=]^Julh=hJklFQ=k=FnJkRzJHtR`[J^FJ=P=R^lnJul=^HOkRF=^]JkRF=^l=^HF`]h=kJlQ`unQJw uk`nJ=E`onnQJ[JP=[kJlnkRFnR`^llJn`onR^nQJ"=zRJk]=^"okJ]EJkP=ul=^HR^R] k`u[=ulR^ ]JkRF=¯ :o[Rw=`]lZ=»=kn]`onQ `[[JPJ¼¾8Q=n =^=^Po=PJ``k!`^o]J^nl°1QJ2^RnJH0n=nJlª Jk]=^wª=^HEJw`^H !`^o]J^nlnJ^Hn`EJjoRJnnQR^Pl¯1QJw=kJJRnQJkÆ^`ntJkE=[ªÇ=l!RFQJ[`oF=o[nh`R^nl`onR^nQJ R^nk`HoFnR`^n`nQJkFQJ`[`Pw`O^`u[JHPJª`knQJwÆl=wR^lR[J^FJl`]JnQR^P`nQJknQ=^uQ=nnQJw=Fno=[[w l=w¯Ç1QJRkF`^lnkoFnR`^ªkJFJhnR`^ª=^HJtJ^n`hh[R^PHJhJ^H`^[=^Po=PJn`=F`^lRHJk=E[JJvnJ^n¯Rln`kR=^l `OnJ^=FZ^`u[JHPJnQRlHJhJ^HJ^FJEwl=wR^Pª[RZJ=w8R^nJkH`JlªnQ=nÆ[=^Po=PJOk=]Jl]J]`kwÇ`knQ=n ÆlR[J^FJRl=[=^Po=PJ`O]J]`kwÇ»€†¼¯:JnnQJlJln=nJ]J^nlkJ]=R^t=PoJ=^HnQJkJO`kJQ=kH[w=FnR`^=E[J R^nQJu`k[H`O=kFQRnJFnlªFok=n`klª`k=FnRtRlnl¯^`kHJkn`EJPR^F[`lR^PnQRlP=hª]whkJlJ^n=nR`^uR[[O`Fol`^ nQJlJnu`joJlnR`^l©`uQ=l[=^Po=PJh[=wJHR^n`]J]`kwFo[nokJl`tJklJ=l°^HQ`uF=^RnEJ=olJOo[ F=nJP`kwR^FokkJ^nHJE=nJl=E`on]J]`kwR^]JkRF=° "=`]R!=^HJ[»JEkJu2^RtJklRnw`OJkol=[J]¼¾2^lhJ=Z=E[J¯©/=FJ=^H!J]`kwR^nQJ^O`k]=nR`^ PJ 1Q=nt=ln=^HtR`[J^nQRln`kRF=[JtJ^nlh`lJ=o^RjoJ=^HF`]hJ[[R^PFQ=[[J^PJn`kJhkJlJ^n=nR`^u=l=^ R]h`kn=^nO`kFJR^`[`F=oln0noHRJl=^HOkRF=^]JkRF=^0noHRJlR^nQJ{^=[HJF=HJl`OnQJnQËFJ^nokw¯ !wE``ZËP=R^lnnQJ2^lhJ=Z=E[J© `]h[RFRnwªnQJ`[`F=olnª=^H0[=tJkwR^]JkRF=Ë» ¼Jv=]R^JHnQJ o^lhJ=Z=E[J½nQ=nRlªnQJ=llo]hnR`^nQ=n=nk`FRnwªQ`kk`kªnk=o]=ª=^Hh=R^J[oHJnQJF`P^RnRtJF=nJP`kRJl`O [=^Po=PJªkJhkJlJ^n=nR`^ª=^HnQ`oPQn¯=kPoJHnQ=nnQJo^lhJ=Z=E[JRluRJ[HJHn`lR]o[n=^J`ol[w=llJknnQJ F`]hJ[[R^PO=Fn`OQRln`kRF=[tRFnR]Rz=nR`^ªl=OJPo=kHR^PnQJR^tR`[=ER[Rnw`OnQJtRFnR]ÉlJvhJkRJ^FJª=^Hn` =knRFo[=nJnQJhkJlJ^FJ`OloOOJkR^P=^HnQJ=ElJ^FJ`ORnlt`RFJ¯1QJP`=[`OnQRln=[ZRln`=knRFo[=nJnQJ R]h=Fn`^nQJo^lhJ=Z=E[J`OnQJË]=R^lnkJ=]R^P`OHRPRn=[F`]honR^PªnQJuRHJlhkJ=H=t=R[=ER[Rnw`OR]=PJ ]=^Rho[=nR`^l`Onu=kJªnQJoERjoRnw`OuJE=FFJllª=^HnQJkRlJ`Ol`FR=[^Jnu`kZR^P¯!wnRn[JªÆ2^lhJ=Z=E[J ¯ªÇlJnlnQJHRlF`oklJ`OnQJo^lhJ=Z=E[JR^nQJF`^nJvn`O8JE¯ª=nJk]h`ho[=kRzJHR^ƒnQ=nkJOJkl n`nQJR^nJk=FnRtJ=^HHw^=]RF`^[R^JJvhJkRJ^FJFkJ=nJHEwuJElRnJlnQ=n=kJHkRtJ^EwolJk¿PJ^Jk=nJH F`^nJ^n¯0`FR=[]JHR=Rl=^R]h`kn=^nh=kn`O8JE¯ª=^HnQJFo[nokJl`O=FJE``Zª/JHHRnª=^H^ln=Pk=] R]h`kn=^n[wF`^nkREonJHn`nQJFo[nokJ`Oh`ln¿O=Fn=^HO=ZJ^JulnQ=n=FF`]h=^RJHnQJkRlJ`O`^=[H1ko]h n`nQJ2¯0¯hkJlRHJ^FwR^€ =luJ[[=lnQJ^`n=E[JohnRFZ`Ok=FR=[tR`[J^FJR^kJFJ^nwJ=kl¯1QJlJ HJtJ[`h]J^nlh`lJO`k]RH=E[JFQ=[[J^PJlEon=[l`o^RjoJ`hh`kno^RnRJlO`knQJlnoHw`Ok=FJª]J]`kwª=^H tR`[J^FJn`H=wªuQJ^ËJvhJkRJ^FJË=^HRnlnJFQ^`[`PRF=[]JHR=nR`^=kJR^FkJ=lR^P[wR^JvnkRF=E[Jª]J]`kwRl hk`HoFJHª]=kZJnJHªlFkRhnJHª=^HHRllJ]R^=nJHHRPRn=[[wª=^Hk=FJ=^Hk=FRl]=kJhk`h=P=nJHªHRllJ]R^=nJHª =^HF`]]`HR{JH`^[R^J¯ !`^RF=!=knR^Jz» k`u^2^RtJklRnw¼¾ËÆn[=l`O1Jkk`kÇ©!=hhR^P0JPkJP=nJHRln`kRJl`O/=FR=[7R`[J^FJ R^1Jv=l !=knR^JzuR[[HRlFoll!=hhR^P7R`[J^FJª=HRPRn=[kJlJ=kFQhk`YJFnnQ=nkJF`tJklF=lJl`Ok=FR=[tR`[J^FJ n=kPJnR^P]o[nRh[Jk=FR=[=^HJnQ^RFPk`ohlR^1Jv=lEJnuJJ^€ˆ=^H€ˆ‚R^1Jv=l¯1QRlR^nJkHRlFRh[R^=kw hk`YJFnRl=nnQJR^nJklJFnR`^`O`^P`R^PF`^tJkl=nR`^lR^nQJ{J[Hl`O]JkRF=^0noHRJlª2¯0¯QRln`kwªJnQ^RF lnoHRJlª=^HnQJHRPRn=[=^HhoE[RFQo]=^RnRJlnQ=nJvh[`kJQ`uEJlnn`^=kk=nJQRln`kRJl`Ok=FR=[tR`[J^FJ¯`u H`Jl`^JtRlo=[[wkJhkJlJ^n=QRln`kw`O[`ll°!=knR^JzR^lRlnlnQ=nOo^H=]J^n=[joJlnR`^lkJ]=R^=E`onnQJ [R]Rnl=^Hh`llRER[RnRJlFkJ=nJHuQJ^QRln`kw=^HHRPRn=[Qo]=^RnRJlF`^tJkPJ¯ RkZ!`lJl»2^RtJklRnw`O0wH^Jw¼¾8`kZR^PnQk`oPQnQJ,=ln=l^n=^P[JHRln`kRJl©J^`FRHJOk`] ]hRkJn`olFQuRnz=^H Jw`^H 1QJ{J[H`OJ^`FRHJ0noHRJlEJP=^=l `]h=k=nRtJJ^`FRHJ0noHRJl=^Hª=FF`kHR^P[wªnQJY`ok^=[JHRnª1QJ `ok^=[`OJ^`FRHJ/JlJ=kFQª`^FJhoE[RlQJH=knRF[JlnQ=nF`oh[JHnu``nQJkuRlJo^kJ[=nJHF=lJl»l=wª k]J^R==^H =]E`HR=¼n`nJln=nQJ`kw`k]`HJ[=E`onl`FR=[EkJ=ZH`u^=^Hln=nJtR`[J^FJ¯ =lJluJkJ=[l` F`]h=kJHn`QRPQ[RPQnlR]R[=kRnRJl=^HHROOJkJ^FJl¯F`]]`^F`oh[R^PF`]h=kJHnQJ`[`F=oln=^Hl[=tJkwª olo=[[wn`=O{k]nQJo^RjoJ=lhJFnl`OnQJO`k]Jk=P=R^ln=PJ^Jk=[nQJ`kw`OtR`[J^FJ¯Q=tJ^JtJkEJJ^ F`]O`kn=E[JuRnQnQRl=hhk`=FQªuQRFQO`o^H]JnQ`H`[`PRF=[[wkRPRH=^Hh`[RnRF=[[wto[^Jk=E[Jn`RHJ^nRnw¿ h`[RnRF=[R^lnko]J^n=[Rz=nR`^¯Rln`kR`Pk=hQw`OOJkl=[nJk^=nRtJn``[lªR^F[oHR^PJ^n=^P[JHªnk=^l^=nR`^=[ª=^H P[`E=[¿QRln`kRF=[=hhk`=FQJlªn`kJ[=nJ=^H[R^ZJtJ^nl=Fk`llnR]J=^Hh[=FJª=[EJRnR^HROOJkJ^nu=wl¯`knQJRk h=knª kRnRF=[1QJ`kw=^H0Jnn[Jk `[`^R=[0noHRJl`OOJknQJh`llRER[Rnw`OR^lJknR^PJtJ^nlR^n`nk=^lO`k]=nRtJ hk`FJllJlnQ=nQ=tJhk`HoFJH]`HJk^Rnwª^`n=E[wnQk`oPQnQJlhkJ=H`OJ]hRkJl=^HR]hJkR=[Rl]=^HnQJ HJtJ[`h]J^n`OnQJu`k[HF=hRn=[RlnlwlnJ]¯^nQRlh=hJkª`OOJk]w`u^JF[JFnRFF`]ER^=nR`^`OnQJlJ =hhk`=FQJln`R^nJPk=nJt=kR`olO`k]l`O]=lltR`[J^FJ`tJkkJFJ^nFJ^nokRJlR^=u=wnQ=n=[[`ulE`nQnQJ ]=ZR^P`OlJ^lRE[J[R^ZlEJnuJJ^JtJ^nl`kF=lJluQR[JhkJlJktR^PnQJRkHRlnR^FnOJ=nokJl=^H]J=^R^PO`k loOOJkR^PF`]]o^RnRJl¯ 0ol=^"JR]=^»R^lnJR^`ko]ª,`nlH=]¼¾J=k^R^POk`]nQJJk]=^l 8Q=nlJJ]JHnJ^HJ^nR`ol=wJ=kJ=k[RJku=l]=HJF[J=kª=nnQJ[=nJlnªR^€†=n Q=k[`nnJltR[[J©"=zRl=kJ^`n Yoln=Jk]=^hk`E[J]¯l]JkRF=lnkoPP[JluRnQRnl`u^k=FRlnh=ln=^HhkJlJ^nªRn]=ZJllJ^lJn`Jv=]R^J uQ=nnQJJk]=^lQ=tJH`^JuRnQnQJRk`u^¯`knQJh=ln†wJ=klª]=^wJk]=^lQ=tJEJJ^J^P=PJHR^ uQ=nnQJwF=[[Ë7JkP=^PJ^QJRnl=oO=kEJRno^P½u`kZR^P¿`OOnQJh=ln¯1Q`oPQnQJhk`FJllQ=lEJJ^l[`uª{nOo[ª =^H`OnJ^hk`E[J]=nRFªnQRln=[ZuR[[=kPoJnQ=n]JkRF=^lF=^[J=k^Ok`]nQJu=wlR^uQRFQJk]=^wQ=l½RO `^[wh=knR=[[w½F`^Ok`^nJHRnlk=FRlnh=lnª=luJEJPR^n`Jv=]R^J`ok`u^¯ Toward Comparative Memory of the Holocaust This essay is adapted from Jonathon Catlin’s remarks at the conference “Comparative Memory and Justice: The Holocaust and Racial Violence in America,” which took place at Princeton University on the eightieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, November 8 and 9, 2018. The massacre at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which left eleven Jewish victims dead, is the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. Yet it is only the latest in a recent surge of racially-targeted violence across America. Putting this attack in perspective requires stepping back to ask hard questions about how we got here and what we can do in response. The Pittsburgh shooter, Robert Bowers, posted on the social media site Gab shortly before the attack that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which the Tree of Life congregation supported, “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” He previously wrote, “There is no #MAGA as long as there is a kike infestation.” Bowers’s murderous ideas echoed conspiracy theories at the highest level of government. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy posted and later deleted a tweet on October 24 that suggested that three Jewish Democratic donors—George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg—were attempting to “buy” the 2018 midterm elections. Trump’s final TV ad framed Soros, Janet Yellen, and Lloyd Blankfein—all of them Jewish—as “global special interests.” President Trump tweeted on October 5 that citizens protesting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh on account of his alleged sexual assault were 1 “professionals…paid for by Soros and others.” On October 22, the same day that Trump declared himself a proud “nationalist” and demonized “globalists” at a Texas rally, pipe bombs were discovered at the homes of Soros and several other prominent Trump critics. On October 31, just four days after the Pittsburgh attack, Trump, apparently unfazed by the role his rhetoric may have had in motivating the attack, told reporters he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Soros was funding the caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S. Such racialized catastrophizing and conspiracy-mongering from on political leaders and right-wing media have undoubtedly helped fuel and legitimize forms of antisemitism that have now proved murderous. The Anti-Defamation League reports that antisemitic incidents increased significantly in 2016 and again in 2017. Yet this is not an isolated phenomenon: In May the NAACP reported a 12 percent rise in hate crimes on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation over the course of 2016 in 38 of our nation’s largest cities. Hate crime totals for the 10 largest cities rose for four straight years to the highest level in a decade. It seems the perils of #livingwhileblack may have something to do with the perils of #livingwhilejewish. Intellectuals have long noted the entwinement of antisemitism and anti-black racism in Western societies. Frantz Fanon wrote in his 1952 Black Skin, White Masks: “It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: ‘When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.’ And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was that the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.” Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno came to a similar conclusion about the interchangeability of victims of racism in their theory of antisemitism as “pathic projection.” While in exile from Hitler’s Germany in the 1940s, they wrote in Dialectic of Enlightenment: “The blindness of anti-Semitism, its lack of intention, lends a degree of truth to the explanation of the movement as a release valve. Rage is vented on those who are both conspicuous and unprotected. And just as, depending on the constellation, the victims are interchangeable: vagrants, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, so each of them can replace the murderer, in the same blind lust for killing, as soon as he feels the power of representing the norm. There is no authentic anti-Semitism, and certainly no born anti-Semite.” While devoting a large part of their lives to combating antisemitism in its particularities, Horkheimer and Adorno rejected the idea of antisemitism as eternal and unique, instead characterizing it as a phenomenon rooted in broader social and subjective pathologies and entangled with other forms of racism. I started thinking seriously about this intersection seriously following a particular conversation. On a warm afternoon in the summer of 2017 I found myself sipping coffee and eating cherries on the Berlin balcony of one of Germany’s leading public intellectuals, Susan Neiman. Her airy apartment overlooks the Maybachufer, a canal-side street in trendy Neukölln with a vibrant Turkish market every Friday. Years before I had read her remarkable book Evil in Modern Thought, which links intellectual reflection upon catastrophes ranging from the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, to Auschwitz, to Hiroshima, to 9/11 to construct an “alternative history of 2 philosophy” that is simultaneously exhilarating and morally compelling. She argues that modern philosophy functioned largely as theodicy, the rational justification of suffering and evil in the world, which crystallized around key disasters including the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755. These systems of justifying evil as a temporary hiccup in a broader of historical progress became unthinkable after horrors of Auschwitz, a suffering so absurd that no philosophical system would dare to try to rationalize it. Neiman likes to quip that she’s never been content with the “trolley problems” that occupy most other moral philosophers. It’s no accident that she left the ivory tower to direct the Einstein Forum, a kind of publicly-engaged philosophical salon. These days, Neiman told me matter-of-factly, her study of evil had brought her closer to home— her first home, Atlanta, Georgia. In her early memoir, Slow Fire, she describes the challenges of growing up Jewish in the Deep South. When she was young, her family’s synagogue was firebombed by the KKK. As an outsider to waspy Southern culture, she recalls being one of the only white kids to sit next to black kids on the school bus. She wouldn’t have known it at the time, but she was living a small part of the meaningful but short-lived black-Jewish civil rights alliance of the 1960s, which extended all the way up to Martin Luther King and his Jewish allies. When we spoke, Neiman had recently returned from a tour through the American South, where she spoke to fellow scholars and ordinary Southerners with the aims of better understanding legacies of racism on the ground and asking what role moral philosophy might play in addressing them. I told her about my own experience in the South a few weeks before. While visiting family in Biloxi, Mississippi, a five-year-old girl boasted to me that her father had just installed a security system in their home to protect against African Americans—she didn’t use that word— “because daddy says they can climb on the roof and through windows just like monkeys, you know.” That girl revealed what talking with her well-meaning parents obscured. There’s a façade of polite manners, of political correctness, of understanding. But, far too often, just below the surface, lies a well of ignorance, hate, and denial about the hard truths of America’s past. Neiman’s wager is that racism is dark and deep but potentially changeable—if not for her generation, then for future ones. Like her old friend Cornel West, her work on even this daunting problem springs with moral force and emancipatory vision. She has good reason to be hopeful: She’s seen firsthand the remarkable way a different kind of racism and denial about the past turned around in German within her own lifetime. Neiman first lived in Germany in the early 1980s, when the wall was still up, while away from Harvard to write her dissertation on Kant’s moral philosophy. In those days one could still experience a divided Berlin, under the specter of the Cold War, largely unconcerned with the genocide that had been planned there. Today, of course, Germany is home to a veritable memory industry. German children receive years of education on the darkest episodes of their own history, and the effects have been significant. While many young Germans suffer from Holocaust “exhaustion,” the lessons of history have stuck and informed taboos against racism that have become a civic religion. The German landscape is dotted with memorials to victims of National Socialism, notably Peter Eisenman’s iconic Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Discussion of 3 provocative proposals for memorials initiated a wide-ranging public discussion of how to responsibly memorialize crimes of such magnitude. But Germans have also taken memorialization into their own hands, installing thousands of brass “stumbling stones” in sidewalks outside the last residences of German Jews before their persecution. Germany’s Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, or working off the past, has been far from perfect; indeed, Slow Fire is full moral and political failures, miscommunication between Germans and Jews then and now, and forms of philosemitism that Neiman finds nearly as disturbing as earlier antisemitism. Nevertheless, Neiman thinks the Germans have something to teach us. Neiman recently spoke on her book, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (FSG, 2019), alongside a dozen scholars from around the world who have pursued comparative approaches to understanding racialized historical violence across African American, Jewish, and indigenous traditions. The interdisciplinary symposium “Comparative Memory and Justice: The Holocaust and Racial Violence in America” was held in November at Princeton University, where last year history professor Martha Sandweiss involved students, faculty, and alumni in uncovering and representing the university’s historical complicity with chattel slavery. The notion of “comparative memory” this symposium devloped is not principally concerned with comparison of historical events. Rather, it suggests that memory of different historical events can be mutually illuminating and reinforcing. By borrowing from and synthesizing different historical cases and cultural traditions, speakers presented innovative ways to understand, work through, narrate, creatively represent, and atone for collective crimes, and to ultimately work toward forms of reparation and justice based upon solidarity across conventional social fault lines. This comparative approach reflects the universal imperative, in Neiman’s words, “to understand how all kinds of ordinary…people commit murder, whether in Majdanek or in Mississippi,” and to reckon with legacies of racial violence confronting us today. Donald Trump announced that he was running for President on June 16, 2015. The following day, the white supremacist Dylann Roof opened fire in a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people in the hopes of launching an all-out race war. Since Trump’s election, hate crimes against minorities towards African Americans and other minorities have risen dramatically. Swastikas appeared scrawled across many Jewish institutions and college campuses. Jewish cemeteries were vandalized in St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Rochester. The New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, pictured at the top of this piece, was vandalized for the second time in months three days after the “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, 2017, where protestors chanted “The Jews will not replace us! The blacks will not replace us! Immigrants will not replace us!” These incidents cannot be separated from the ethnonationalist rhetoric and racist threats of Trump himself, nor from his administration’s aggressive actions against immigrants and minorities. The convergence of these events demonstrates the need for a national discussion about the intersecting legacies of racism and antisemitism in America. The symposium aimed to support that discussion by drawing upon strategies of remembering and working through violent pasts around the world. 4 The relationship between those combatting anti-black racism and antisemitism has not always been easy. The opening chapter of the Holocaust scholar Michael Rothberg’s Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization raises the view of African American leaders who have understandably seen American fixation on the Holocaust as a way of deflecting attention away from crimes that took place on American soil. Why, after all, has there been a Holocaust Museum on the Washington Mall since 1993 but, until very recently, nothing comparable for slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, and the extermination of indigenous people? Such questions are hardly new. One need only think of Aimé Césaire’s 1955 claim that Nazi violence against Jews was so shocking to Western consciousness because it “applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.” In her 1951 Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt called this the “boomerang effect of imperialism upon the homeland.” Indeed, scholarly understanding of the Holocaust has subsequently been transformed by recent attention to earlier atrocities and technologies of violence advanced by colonialism, from the British invention of the concentration camp in the Boer Wars to the first genocide of the twentieth century by the German Empire against the Herero and Nama peoples in what is now Namibia. In this broader context of global violence, Rothberg argues persuasively that memory is not mutually exclusive: the answer is not either/or but both/and. Multidirectional Memory tells of shifting intersections of public remembrance of the Holocaust, slavery, and colonization that inform and reinforce one another—for example through the development of memory practices such as monuments, education, and a shared vocabulary of justice and reparations. This work is a cornerstone of the nascent subfield of Memory Studies, and Rothberg has since undertaken a study, with Yasemin Yildiz, on how Turkish-Germans and other immigrants, refugees, and postmigrants negotiate and are affected by Germany’s culture of Holocaust memory. Dirk Moses also began his career writing on Germany’s Nazi past but has since compared German memory with that of his native Australia, where the question of genocide of indigenous peoples remains a contentious issue. In the field of comparative genocide studies Moses has helped establish, genocide, colonialism, and the Holocaust are often brought into comparative analysis in order to understand the role of factors such as racism and state power in explaining mass violence. Decentering the Holocaust and expanding our understanding of genocide is a partial response to the task Dipesh Chakrabarty called “provincializing Europe.” The careful work in these fields shows that this does not minimize the significance of the Holocaust; on the contrary it adds to our understanding of how genocides happen globally, while often referring back to the Holocaust as the most-document and accordingly most-researched historical case. Multidirectional memory suggests that we rethink past events in light of present ones, as well as in light of each other. Recent work on historical violence illustrates how comparative approaches have been mutually informative. On the one hand, Marcus Rediker’s Slave Ship employs the notion of a “black holocaust” to characterize the Atlantic slave trade. On the other hand, Karl Jacoby’s work on violence against Native Americans takes a more critical approach to concepts 5 like genocide and ethnic cleansing, wary of ways they may efface Native agency. Mitchell Duneier’s Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea tells the story of how a form of residential segregation imposed upon Jews in sixteenth-century Italy came to be used to describe the condition of urban African Americans centuries later. Like Rothberg, Duneier invokes the remarkable story of W.E.B. Du Bois’s transformative visit to the Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes in 1949 to bring together legacies of racial stigma, segregation, impoverishment, and persecution across the Atlantic. Attention to such intersections improve historical understanding while enacting Rothberg’s call for “comparisons, analogies, and other multidirectional invocations [as] an inevitable part of the struggle for justice…an ethical vision based on commitment to uncovering historical relatedness and working through partial overlaps and conflicting claims that constitute the archives of memory and the terrain of politics.” Carolyn J. Dean’s latest work, The Moral Witness, identifies the hazards of exclusionary and hierarchical forms of memory, whereby only certain witnesses can legitimately represent genocidal violence. When the Holocaust became a stand-in for Western moral conscience, Dean asks what other violence were occluded from view, notably victims of colonial violence, in turn illustrating how our frameworks for understanding mass murder were and are shaped by Western racism. Neiman argues that singular fixation on the Holocaust retains a dangerous appeal for Americans: “The prominence of the Holocaust in American culture serves a crucial function: We know what evil is, and we know the Germans did it.” Our ahistorical fascination with the Holocaust conveniently confines the evils of modern history to another country that we heroically defeated, letting ourselves off the hook. Neiman’s work traces this impulse to externalize evil all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Today, she writes, the characterization of the Holocaust as evil is “the only universal moral consensus we have,” and she regrets that “focus on Auschwitz distorts our moral vision,” for this “symbol of absolute evil gives us a gold standard by which other evil actions may look like common coin.” “Focus on Auschwitz,” she concludes, too often functions as “a form of displacement for what we don’t want to know about our own national crimes.” Neiman hopes we might learn from example. She aims to counter the tendency to deflect evil by showing how Germany’s reckoning with the complicity of millions of ordinary Germans with the Holocaust might teach us to examine our own blemished moral record. To give one example of such work underway, James Whitman’s 2017 book Hitler’s American Model illustrates the surprising and perverse influence of America’s own legacy of legalized racial oppression: Jim Crow laws concerning American citizenship and antimiscegenation directly informed drafting of the Nazis two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Engaging such entangled and deceptively banal histories is difficult, but this is precisely the kind of public working through Neiman is after: “This kind of moral training helps us to recognize complex forms of evil as well as simple ones, and prepares us to begin to prevent them. For the more we focus on simple models of evil, the less practice we have in recognizing complicated ones.” Monuments played a central role in Germany’s “working through the past.” Early postwar denazification efforts were often superficial, leaving thousands of former Nazis in positions of 6 power for years. Yet in one respect it was swift and decisive: as Joshua Zeitz and Yulia Komska have recently noted, Germany today has no remaining Nazi monuments. Of course, the removal of physical icons was only the first step in a long process of acknowledging responsibility. Yet today German democracy is far less permissive of racism and right-wing extremism than America’s. Despite notable violence against Arabs and migrants, as well as the rise of far-right groups such as the Alternative for Germany party, far more Germans have taken to the streets and train stations to demonstrate their support for migrants, demonstrating, in Neiman’s words, that “contemporary Germans understand collective responsibility as meaning a commitment to avoiding in the future the sins their fathers and grandfathers committed in the past.” We can learn from Germany’s process of coming to terms with the past without glamorizing it. In her insightful contribution to the debate about the fate of Confederate monuments in America, Komska reflected: “The German case is exemplary not because Germans attained closure, but because they came to recognize that closure was neither tenable nor desirable. Instead, the processing of history is like an open wound that slowly heals only with careful debate about the often-explosive issues at stake. The United States can avoid making irreparable mistakes by learning from Germany’s blunders and subsequent course corrections.” When it comes to problematic monuments, Komska illustrates that iconoclasm is not the only solution on the table: other countries have re-signified monuments by adding new language to them or displaying them in historical rather than honorific contexts. Commemoration, she reminds us, is ultimately a communication process. Other forms of counter-monumentality, such as the understated stumbling stones in German sidewalks, use negative space to remind us of what is missing in everyday encounters. Jennifer Allen has even characterized the new wave of decentralized and grassroots memorial projects like the stumbling stones as “sustainable utopias.” Neiman takes to heart Tzvetan Todorov’s injunction that “Germans should talk about the particularity of the Holocaust; Jews should talk about its universality.” She has remarked that one could make a general principle out of this insight: a German who talks about the particularity of the Holocaust is taking responsibility for it, whereas a German who talks about its universality is denying responsibility for it. In his influential 1999 essay “The Finger of Blame,” Germany’s leading philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, similarly insisted on the “ethical particularism” of German responsibility for the Holocaust as a unique civic duty. In this respect, unlike Habermas, Neiman writes as a Jew and as an American, not as a German. Whereas most Germans would bristle at the provocative question she raises, “dare we compare American slavery to the Holocaust?” her affirmative answer comes in the title of one of her essays: “Can America face up to the terrible reality of slavery in the way that Germany has faced up to the Holocaust?” In fact, America is already starting to. The past few years have seen the creation of America’s first slavery museum near New Orleans on the site of a former planation, the national lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and the nearby Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, on the site of a former warehouse for enslaved people. In the past few years, “stopping stones” and “witness stones” inspired by those in Germany have been installed around 7 the U.S. through local initiatives to testify to the pervasiveness of slavery (including in the North) and to memorialize the humanity and contributions of enslaved people. Digitally mapping historical violence can have a similar effect. For example, Mapping Violence, an initiative led by Monica Muñoz Martinez, has constructed a record of largely forgotten violence against thousands of ethnic Mexicans in the Texas borderlands at the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition to official memorials, cultural representations are also crucial in helping societies work through historical traumas. To give a notable example, the TV mini-series Holocaust, which was viewed by an estimated 20 million Germans when it debuted in 1979, is widely credited with galvanizing German public consciousness of that event much the same way the series Roots helped awaken the memory of slavery in America two years earlier. More recently, films like Schindler’s List caused an outpouring of support for Holocaust research and education. Neiman surprised even herself in crediting Quentin Tarantino’s controversial Django Unchained for bringing the horrors of slavery to life: “To borrow a distinction from the philosopher Stanley Cavell: if we are to acknowledge, and not merely know, the extent of our nation’s crimes, some degree of traumatisation must take place.” As Tarantino remarked in conversation with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “I think America is one of the only countries that has not been forced, sometimes by the rest of the world, to look their own past sins completely in the face. And it’s only by looking them in the face that you can possibly work past them.” The symposium’s opening dialogue launched this discussions with diverse perspectives from scholars engaged in public projects that bring together African American and Jewish legacies of oppression. Susannah Heschel has written and spoken on the shared challenges of overcoming antisemitism and anti-black racism in America. Willa M. Johnson, one of the first African American women trained as a Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies scholar, has written about teaching the Holocaust at the University of Mississippi, which was historically segregated, and how to learn from the experiences of structural racism her diverse students bring into the classroom. The work of Christopher D. Benson highlights the importance of narrative in communicating historical trauma, from the murder of Emmett Till to his stage adaptation of the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Inheritance,” an extension of the Schindler’s List story that explores the dynamics of memory, forgetting, and the enduring effects of trauma. America is only just beginning undergo such a public reckoning with its own past crimes. In American public life one encounters relatively little recognition of individual guilt, institutional complicity, or national collective responsibility for slavery or the genocide of Native Americans. By comparison to the thousands of German stumbling stones, Neiman asks, “can you imagine a monument to the genocide of Native Americans or the Middle Passage at the heart of the Washington Mall? Suppose you could walk down the street and step on a reminder that this building was constructed with slave labour, or that the site was the home of a Native American tribe before it was ethnically cleansed?” Why is it that these possibilities seems so far-fetched in America today? What historical blockages still stand in the way of reckoning with the past and accepting responsibility? Washington’s national museums of African American and American 8 Indian history seek in their own ways to confront these difficult pasts. But as Neiman notes, we Americans “have always been inclined to look to the future instead of the past, and our museums follow suit. It’s impossible to compare what’s on display in our national showcase with what you can find in Germany without feeling that America’s national history retains its whitewash—and that a sane and sound future requires a more direct confrontation with our past.” Amidst ongoing racialized violence, there are some promising signs that America is slowly moving toward forms of acknowledgement of and reparation for past crimes: public intellectuals such as Ta-Nehisi Coates have begun a nationwide conversation about reparations to descendants of former slaves, as well as the pervasiveness of white supremacy still today, while Michelle Alexander has raised attention about “the New Jim Crow” of mass incarceration of African Americans. Several universities, including Brown and Princeton, have undertaken historical projects to uncover their complicity with slavery, with institutions such as Georgetown offering reparations in the form of free education to descendants of those slaves. The German model shows us that concrete efforts toward atonement and reparation are essential, but only a first step. Like successful forms of memorialization, they should never allow us to wash our hands of the past; rather, they must serve to deepen our sense of responsibility for it. Confederate monuments and flags should be taken down, but this process should not allow the past acts of racial violence, together with their long structural legacies continuing up to today, to be swept under the rug and forgotten. In their place, we must develop new forms of storytelling, mapping, and visually representing legacies of racialized violence that open them up for public discussion and restitution. No doubt a long and arduous reckoning awaits us. Jonathon Catlin is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History and the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities (IHUM) at Princeton University. His research focuses on intellectual responses to catastrophe, especially in German-Jewish thought and the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His writings have appeared in The Point, Post45, Antisemitism Studies, and the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, where he is also a contributing editor. 9