‘Never forget that this has happened’: Remembering and forgetting violence

[Extract] In the seventy-three years since Primo Levi extolled us to ‘never forget’ the genocide of Auschwitz, remembering the violence of the Holocaust has assumed many and varied forms. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there has not been one universal way this indelible event is remembered or represented. Indeed, all acts of atrocity committed throughout the twentieth century are now recalled through a multiplicity of media and with many varied messages. Scholars have examined a range of cultural sites that have served the purpose of remembering as well as forgetting acts of violence. These include analyses of memorials, the use of oral history, family histories, personal memories, pilgrimages, artworks and sculpture, museum exhibitions, violence on the physical landscape, material artefacts of violence and state-sanctioned commemorations. Cultural media such as film and photography have been examined as forms of commemoration. In the digital age, social media offer a new vehicle for commemorative practices recalling experiences of violence and enduring aftermaths.