Holocaust consciousness in contemporary Britain

The Holocaust is a pervasive presence in British culture and society. Within the educational system universities have become hives of academic activity, schools have been legally required to deliver Holocaust education for twenty year, and the Government helps to fund student visits to Auschwitz. Elsewhere, the Imperial War Museum’s permanent Holocaust Exhibition has attracted millions of visitors at the same time as Britain has annually commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January. Whilst these developments speak to the institutionalisation of the Holocaust, they are also accompanied by engagements in the media and popular culture. All in all, British awareness and interest in the Holocaust would appear to be firmly established. What has prompted this development; how has it unfolded, and why has it happened now? How does it relate to Britain’s post-war history, its contemporary concerns, and the wider “globalisation” of Holocaust memory? What are the multiple shapes that British Holocaust consciousness assumes and the consequences from their rapid emergence? Why have the so-called “lessons” of the Holocaust enjoyed such popularity in Britain? These are some of the central questions of this seminal investigation into the causes and effects of the increasing prominence of the Holocaust in present-day Britain. Through analysis of changing engagements with the Holocaust in political, cultural and memorial landscapes over the past generation the book demonstrates the complexities of Holocaust consciousness whilst illustrating its fundamentally “British” nature. It also shows that there are elemental differences in the way the Holocaust is understood at “official” levels compared to “grassroots” engagements, and so reflects on the contrasting ways that history is used in Britain toda