The politics of retribution in Europe : World War II and its aftermath / edited by István Deák, Jan T. Gross, and Tony Judt.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Deák, István, 1926-2023.

Gross, Jan Tomasz.

Judt, Tony

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Collaborationists--Europe.

Physical Description:

xii, 337 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2000]

Summary:

The presentation of Europe's immediate historical past has quite dramatically changed. Conventional depictions of occupation and collaboration in World War II, of wartime resistance and post-war renewal, provided the familiar backdrop against which the chronicle of post-war Europe has mostly been told. Within these often ritualistic presentations, it was possible to conceal the fact that not only were the majority of people in Hitler's Europe not resistance lighters but millions actively cooperated with and many millions more rather easily accommodated to Nazi rule. Moreover, after the war, those who judged former collaborators were sometimes themselves former collaborators. Many people became innocent victims of retribution, while others -- among them notorious war criminals -- escaped punishment. Nonetheless, the process of retribution was not useless but rather a historically unique effort to purify the continent of the many sins Europeans had committed. This book sheds light on the collective amnesia that overtook European governments and peoples regarding their own responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- an amnesia that has only recently begun to dissipate as a result of often painful searching across the continent.

In inspiring essays, a group of internationally renowned scholars unravels the moral and political choices facing European governments in the war's aftermath: how to punish the guilty, how to decide who was guilty of what, how to convert often unspeakable and conflicted war experiences and memories into serviceable, even uplifting accounts of national history. In short, these scholars explore how the drama of the immediate past was (and was not)successfully "overcome." Through their comparative and transnational emphasis, they also illuminate the division between eastern and western Europe, locating its origins both in the war and in post-war domestic and international affairs. Here, as in their discussion of collaborators' trials, the authors lay bare the roots of the many unresolved and painful memories clouding present-day Europe.

Contents:

Themes for a Social History of War Experience and Collaboration / Jan T. Gross 15

Part II The Experience of War 37

A Fatal Compromise? The Debate over Collaboration and Resistance in Hungary / Istvan Deak 39

A Tangled Web: Confronting Stereotypes Concerning Relations between Poles, Germans, Jews, and Communists / Jan T. Gross 74

Part III Trials and Political Expediency 131

Justice in Postwar Belgium: Popular Passions and Political Realities / Martin Conway 133

The Criminal Justice System As a Political Actor in Regime Transitions: The Case of Belgium, 1944-50 / Luc Huyse 157

"Restoration of Confidence": The Purge of Local Government in the Netherlands As a Problem of Postwar Reconstruction / Peter Romijn 173

Postwar Justice in France: Bordeaux 1953 / Sarah Farmer 194

The Cold War and the Appropriation of Memory: Greece after Liberation / Mark Mazower 212

The People's Courts and Revolutionary Justice in Hungary, 1945-46 / Laszlo Karsai 233

The Politics of Retribution: The Trial of Jozef Tiso in the Czechoslovak Environment / Bradley Abrams 252

The Past Is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe / Tony Judt 293.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0691009538

0691009546

OCLC:

43840165