Forgotten Memory
The Jews of Vilne in the Diaspora
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Abstract
The way East European Jews are remembered is subject to increasing examination, but very little is known about how East European Jews remember. Most Holocaust survivors did not return to their hometowns and villages, but settled around the world. Jewish hometown associations, or landsmanshaftn, kept alive the memory of the places they had left behind, and the Holocaust. This is seen in the case of the Jews of Vilnius, or Vilne as it is called in Yiddish. The way they view the past differs fundamentally from the way Jews still living in Vilnius see it. This contains the potential for conflict over cultural heritage and the interpretation of history, as evidenced in the dispute over materials from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
(Special Issue, pp. 187–198)
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