Part II - The Landscape of Memory

Summary

Section II of this volume centers on the collective mnemonic invocation of the two watersheds under review. The focus in this part lies on national memorial days – Yawm al-Nakbah (Arabic: Nakba day) and Yom ha-Shoah (Hebrew: Holocaust day) – and on places of commemoration. Through differentiating between non-physical and physical mnemonic acts, the two chapters that make up this part testify to the different mnemonics that have arisen as a result of the diverging political reality that exists in both societies under review. Within the 1948 borders, access to former Palestinian villages has meant that Nakba commemorations encompass physical mnemonics that center on former Palestinians localities, whereas restrictions on Palestinian movement into Israel have meant that non-site-specific commemorative acts dominate in the West Bank. The existing political circumstances have created a further disparity in the official nature of the Israeli and Palestinian institutes and organizations involved in commemoration. In the Israeli context, the three main Holocaust memorial institutes under examination in Israel, namely Yad Vashem, Lohamei Hagetaot, and Yad Mordechai, conform with the official state narrative. Conversely, the absence of Palestinian governance in Palestinian society inside the 1948 borders and post-Oslo hostility toward the PA has meant that an overt state-sanctioned narrative has largely remained absent in Nakba commemorations, leading civil society organizations on both sides of the Green Line to adopt a dominant role in mnemonics.