Portraying Holocaust Perpetration, Collaboration, and Victimhood in Memorial Museums in Estonia and Latvia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper analyses recent developments in how Holocaust perpetration, victimhood, and bystanding are interpreted and presented in the ‘national’ museums dedicated to Nazi and/or Soviet occupations and repressions in Estonia and Latvia: respectively, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom (Vabamu) and the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (MOL). Since each of the museums aims, in its own distinct way, to tell a story of ‘national’ suffering and resistance, this paper will focus on analyzing these ‘national’ narratives in a comparative fashion. It particularly focuses on how the Holocaust is presented and interpreted. How are perpetration, collaboration, bystanding, and victimhood interpreted, and who is identified as holding each of these roles during the Holocaust and, as applicable, before and/or after? Are characterizations dynamic or static? And how do these portrayals mesh with the broader aims of each museum as well as current sociopolitical trends in memory, history, and security?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow