Remembering the Holocaust in a Racial State: Cultural and Discursive Aspects of Holocaust Memory in South Africa from Apartheid to Democracy (1948-1994)

This study explores cultural and discursive performances of Holocaust memory in South Africa from the early years of apartheid through to its transition to democracy (1948-1994).  To focus on apartheid-era Jewish commemorations of the destruction of European Jewry is to see the fascinating transformation of a diasporic community, one with a gradually shifting social position. Through the prism of Holocaust memory, this research addresses the ambivalent nature of this community, as a minority within the privileged minority, that shapes the need for specific forms of self-representation. The research’s main argument is that the ambivalent status that designated South African Jews ambivalence position in apartheid South Africa is reflected in the centrality of Holocaust memory to the community’s collective identity, politics and culture.

The South African case is a unique example of a struggle against anti-Semitism that is being completely detached from the struggle against racism. Through official national routes, the South African Jewish community was able to publicly mediate the anti-antisemitic message of the Holocaust to the white communities, while ignoring its relevance to local racism. The paradox was reinforced when the community used the draconian apparatus of state systems of a deeply oppressive racial regime to counter anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial that themselves encoded racist assumptions. However, this research moves beyond an insular focus on the South African Jewish community in its consideration of state actors, and in a very different modality, investigates prominent figures in the anti-apartheid struggle not previously considered in this regard. This cross-chronological chapter provides alternative perceptions of the destruction of European Jews during the apartheid years.

Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including speeches and rabbinic sermons, reports of communal organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish press, literature, historiography, memoirs, plays, films, exhibitions, and monuments, this research evidences the urgent, ongoing efforts of organized South African Jews to remember the extermination of European Jews; it also demonstrates clearly the role played by those commemorations in the formation of South African white communities Holocaust consciousness. Through an examination of this rich body of archival materials, the dissertation chapters chronologically and thematically map the centers of gravity of memory and consciousness, highlighting the local dominant modes of commemoration and memorialization of the Holocaust throughout the apartheid period and during the transition to democracy.