“Collaboration”: A contested term and an invitation for revisionism
Klacsmann, Borbala
“Collaboration”: A contested term and an invitation for revisionism - 2025.
58
Recent debates in Holocaust museums focus on how “collaboration” during World War II is portrayed. In Germany, there is reluctance to highlight local collaborators to avoid shifting responsibility away from Germans. In other European countries, collaboration is often linked to military, police, or mob involvement, overlooking the roles of business leaders, intellectuals, politicians, and ordinary citizens in supporting the Nazi regime. While the term “collaboration” is now widely used, this was not always the case. There is ongoing hesitation to fully define it, complicating debates on Holocaust revisionism, especially amid a shift towards illiberal paradigms in Holocaust remembrance. This article examines how the term “collaboration” has evolved in the legal and historical contexts of countries like Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Serbia, where it has been introduced but has not fully resonated. It questions whether “collaboration” is the best term to capture the complexity of compliance and survival under Nazi occupation, particularly in light of recent illiberal trends in Holocaust memory. This article presents results from the research project When Nationalism Fails – A Comparative Study of Holocaust Museums, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
“Collaboration”: A contested term and an invitation for revisionism - 2025.
58
Recent debates in Holocaust museums focus on how “collaboration” during World War II is portrayed. In Germany, there is reluctance to highlight local collaborators to avoid shifting responsibility away from Germans. In other European countries, collaboration is often linked to military, police, or mob involvement, overlooking the roles of business leaders, intellectuals, politicians, and ordinary citizens in supporting the Nazi regime. While the term “collaboration” is now widely used, this was not always the case. There is ongoing hesitation to fully define it, complicating debates on Holocaust revisionism, especially amid a shift towards illiberal paradigms in Holocaust remembrance. This article examines how the term “collaboration” has evolved in the legal and historical contexts of countries like Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Serbia, where it has been introduced but has not fully resonated. It questions whether “collaboration” is the best term to capture the complexity of compliance and survival under Nazi occupation, particularly in light of recent illiberal trends in Holocaust memory. This article presents results from the research project When Nationalism Fails – A Comparative Study of Holocaust Museums, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
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