Spain, World War II, and the Holocaust: History, Literature, and Memory

AHA Session 267
Sunday, January 6, 2019: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Waldorf Room (Hilton Chicago, Third Floor)
Chair:
Andrew H. Lee, New York University
Panel:
Sara Brenneis, Amherst College
Joshua Goode, Claremont Graduate University
Gina Herrmann, University of Oregon
David Messenger, University of South Alabama

Session Abstract

This roundtable discussion will examine various ways in which the history and memory of the Second World War and the Holocaust have been integrated into broader narratives of Spain’s experience as a non-belligerent and neutral state under the dictatorial regime of General Francisco Franco (1939-1975). Drawing on new archival research, on literary analysis and on memory studies, the roundtable will highlight different mediums and will pull together different threads that reveal how Spain has, and has not, dealt with its difficult past with Nazi Germany, Nazism and fascism, and the Holocaust itself. In this discussion, contributors will highlight their research on topics such as the experience of Spanish victims of Nazism at the Mauthausen and Ravensbruck concentration camps, who brought their experiences to bear on understanding the Holocaust in Spain, to former Nazis and Germans who stayed in Spain after the war and contributed to ideas there about fascism and Nazism under Franco’s dictatorship, to shared experiences of victimhood in both World War II and the Spanish Civil War. A parallel proposal is being submitted to the MLA, which will permit for a larger number of panelists.
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