Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the approach of Serbian and Spanish authorities towards Holocaust commemoration during the year 2005. During the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, there was further institutionalization of Holocaust memory by designating January 27 as the official day of remembrance on a global and European level. Adapting old forms of commemoration to new transnational frameworks brought other issues to the forefront – the memory of wars, the question of suffering of the Serbian/Spanish and Jewish people and the interpretation of the role of local fascist forces in the Holocaust.

Keywords: politics of memory, commemorations, Holocaust, Serbia, Spain, 2005

Summary

The development of global Holocaust memory, particularly intensified and institutionalized within the United Nations and the European Union, has had a distinct impact on the mnemonic conditions in Spain and Serbia. Local actors and memory politics in these two countries, influenced primarily by internal socio-political movements and conflicting interpretations of past wars (the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War), have chosen different strategies to integrate the remembrance of the mass suffering of the Jewish population into the new global frameworks. Spain avoided direct participation in the Second World War and did not have direct experience with the extermination of Jews. However, anti-Semitic propaganda, certain anti-Jewish measures, close ties to Hitler’s Germany, and the variable stance of the Francoist regime toward Jewish refugees were part of the local historical legacy, which posed challenges to the culture of memory among Spanish political elites in the late 20th and early 21st century. On the other hand, the direct Nazi military occupation, the mass reprisals against the Serbs throughout Yugoslavia and the near-complete annihilation of the Jewish population in the Holocaust were the main features of the Serbian experience during the Second World War. Turbulent changes in political regimes, the breakup of Yugoslavia and new wars led to abrupt changes in narrative, which solidified the conflicting views on the previous war. In such circumstances, the Holocaust, to a greater or lesser extent, was interpreted at the beginning of the new millennium as part of the collective memory of Serbian victims of genocide.