ABSTRACT

Shoah survivors are prominent amongst such groups, which also include organizations representing veterans of combat from the two World Wars and other conflicts, as well as civilians whose lives have been damaged by war. Frequently, the demand for recognition also involves claims for material compensation and reparation requiring some form of official investigation in the political or legal spheres, thus acting as a further stimulant to public debate. War memory and commemoration have tended to be studied within one of two main paradigms. There can be found arguments which construe its significance as fundamentally political; that is, as a practice bound up with rituals of national identification, and a key element in the symbolic repertoire available to the nation-state for binding its citizens into a collective national identity. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.