The Collective Memory of Trauma and Why it Still Matters

Holocaust historian Jan Tomasz Gross claimed in a 2015 article that the immigration crisis in Europe is inextricably linked to the way Europeans today contend with their group’s behavior during the Holocaust. What does the influx of mostly Muslim immigrants to Europe have to do with how Europeans treated their Jewish population eighty years ago? According to Gross, the answer lies in whether nations acknowledge their historical culpability, most notably in the case of Germany, or whether they actively try to deny any wrongdoing, such as in the cases of Poland and Hungary. The acknowledgement of historical crimes motivates corrective policies that may help create a distinction between the tainted image of the historical group and the repaired image of the current group. When crimes are not acknowledged, however, history is bound to repeat itself and the xenophobia of the past only takes on new shape and form. History, therefore, is not merely a faint memory, but a living process that shapes current emotions, behaviors and policies of the groups affected. In the words of William Faulkner, “the past is never dead, it’s not even past.”

This historical analysis receives support from a subfield of social psychology that is interested in how historical or collective memory influences the current cognitions, emotions, and behaviors of group members. According to social representations theory, collective memory of historical events is a highly reconstructive and motivated process wherein people remember the history of their group in a manner that serves their current interests and beliefs often to the point of discounting the historical facts. Thus, it is not historical accuracy that drives memory, but concerns about group moral image and the desire to view one’s group in a positive light. When the group is seen as good, individuals belonging to the group enjoy the benefit of being valued members of a valued group. For instance, if a group represents itself as the defender of freedom and human rights, as the United States does, this representation elicits a sense of identification and pride among group members even if this flattering image is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the group’s history.

What happens, however, when the negative history of a group is hard to deny, and it continues to cast a long and dark shadow on the group’s current image? The literature identifies a host of defensive maneuvers that serve the purpose of salvaging group image such as blaming the victim (“they deserved the harm”), believing that group members were forced to collaborate with harmdoers against their will (collaboration at gunpoint), competing with the victim group over victim status (competitive victimization), minimizing the extent of harm done to the victim group (obfuscation and trivialization of the trauma), and arguing that the victims were actually the real perpetrators (perpetrator-victim reversal). In some relatively rare cases, the perpetrator group accepts full responsibility for the trauma they inflicted and begins a process of change and reconciliation.

Germany stands as a unique case in that regard. On the one hand, it committed a horrific genocide that stands as a symbol for all other genocides, but, on the other hand, it has also taken full responsibility for its actions and embarked on a process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung – a struggle to overcome the negatives of the past and address questions of group culpability and responsibility. The acknowledgement of victimization is painful but offers the opportunity to reconstruct meaning and a positive group image by creating a new liberal Germany that is committed to diametrically opposite values than those of Nazi Germany.

Research conducted by my colleagues and myself on large representative samples indicate that representations of history are not uniform among group members and that different people hold different lay explanations for why the collective trauma occurred. In the context of the Holocaust, we found that Germans and Israelis hold similar lay representations of history, with different levels of endorsement of each representation both within and between groups. In both groups, representations ranged from internal explanations, such that there is an evil element to German society/ideology or that Germans are obedient in nature, to external explanations such that the Nazis forced themselves upon German society or that the social and economic context after WWI led to the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. Not surprisingly, Germans preferred external/contextual explanations for the Holocaust whereas Israeli Jews endorsed more internal explanations. The motivation to embrace exonerating attributions of negative behavior for one’s own group and damning attributions of the same behavior to another group, is referred to in the psychological literature as “the ultimate attribution error.”

Additional findings that pertain to current events showed that representations of history have a bearing on current intergroup relations and on burning social and political issues that at first sight seem far removed from a genocide that took place eighty years ago. These findings indicate that among Germans, the more they believed that the Holocaust was the result of a core characteristic of German society, the more they wanted to draw a thick line between the past and the present (Schlussstrich). To them, the dark history of their nation is a highly aversive memory. However, these individuals also showed more positive attitudes towards Israel and had a more favorable attitude towards immigration to Germany. Both intergroup attitudes were explained by higher levels of collective guilt. Thus, internal representations of historical collective trauma elicit greater negative feelings among descendants of perpetrator groups, especially feelings of collective guilt, that seem to motivate reparative actions either towards the victim group or towards other groups that are currently victimized and require assistance.

Attributions to external causes, however, elicited different reactions among Germans. If they believed that the Nazis coerced the German population to collaborate by force (collaboration at gunpoint) or if they believed that the social and economic consequences of WWI such as the Versailles Agreement and hyperinflation led to the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, they showed no sign of collective guilt or a desire to repair the moral image of their group. Indeed, the implication of endorsing external explanations for the Holocaust is that Germans are not guilty in essence but are merely victims of circumstance. From this perspective, if other groups faced the same situation they would most likely react in a similar way. If there is no German exceptionalism, there is no specific German culpability, and therefore no room for guilt, remorse, or repair. These Germans in particular exhibited negative attitudes towards the current wave of immigration to Germany and to Europe.

Israeli Jews showed diametrically opposite responses. Those who believed that the Holocaust was the result of essential German characteristics such as evil or obedience, showed greater dislike of contemporary Germans, were not inclined to close the door on history, and exhibited negative attitudes towards non-Jewish immigration to Israel. These attitudes were explained by high levels of collective victimization. Thus, whereas internal, essentialist explanations were associated with collective guilt among Germans that seemed to motivate actions to repair their moral image of their group, these same explanations were associated with collective victimization and with elevated group survival concerns among Israeli Jews. Importantly, those who believed that there is an essential core German characteristic that can explain the Holocaust seemed to see no difference between the Germans of the past and those of the present.

Israeli Jews that endorsed external explanations for the Holocaust (Nazi coercion and social-political context), however, showed positive attitudes towards contemporary Germany. From this perspective, once the context has changed there is no reason to hold current Germans responsible for the actions of their ancestors. These Israelis also exhibited positive attitudes towards non-Jewish immigration to Israel. Interestingly, Holocaust survivors and their descendants preferred external over internal explanations for the Holocaust and were therefore supportive of reconciliation with current Germans. Perhaps a greater familiarity with German people and German culture leads to a rejection of essentialist, internal explanations, and greater agreement with contextual attributions for the Holocaust.

The question of how current generations explain the Holocaust and how it relates to contemporary issues becomes even more complex when examining nations that were under the sphere of German influence either because of occupation, annexation, or collaboration. These nations correspond to Primo Levi’s definition of the gray zone – a nebulous area where victims are perpetrators and perpetrators are victims. To examine this grey zone, my colleagues and I ran representative surveys on nine different European populations in both Eastern and Western Europe. Some of these groups were under direct Nazi occupation such as France and Poland. Others were willingly annexed by the Third Reich (Austria), and yet others officially collaborated with the Nazis (e.g., Hungary). Surprisingly, in spite of the different relations between these groups to Nazi Germany, and in spite of differences in history, geography, and context, members of these groups remembered history in a strikingly similar way with similar implications on current social and political questions. Contemporary Europeans whose nations were under the sphere of Nazi influence overwhelmingly believe that their nation was a victim of Nazi Germany and even a hero nation that actively resisted the Nazis. Some members of these groups believe that their nation collaborated with the Nazis, but only because they were forced to, and yet fewer believe that members of their group willingly collaborated with the Nazis. These are remarkable findings given the documented widespread collaboration across Europe with Nazi Germany and the negligible opposition and resistance to Nazi influence. Time and again we find that people are not concerned with historical accuracy, but with the way history reflects on their group today.

These beliefs in the innocence of their own group were further reinforced by believing in an evil or obedient essence of the German people. The belief that Germans are somehow flawed by nature helps members of other European nations relieve any sense of guilt and responsibility; it exonerates their own group from any wrongdoing. Indeed, the belief in German character flaws (evil or obedient essence) were associated with perceiving current immigration to Europe as a threat to the group. This relationship between ascribing evil essence to Germans and opposing immigration was explained through greater feelings of perpetual victimization of their group and through feeling of entitlement to protect the group from harm. These findings suggest that when people are unencumbered by feelings of guilt or remorse, they can more freely express harsh attitudes towards a morally contentious issue, such as the plight of immigrants and refugees.

In 2018, the Polish parliament approved the “Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance”, a partially repealed Polish law that criminalized public speech attributing responsibility for the Holocaust to Poland and its people. This attempt to use legal means to whitewash a nation’s contentious past led to diplomatic, academic, and social strife and ironically only increased the discussion and scholarship on the role of Poland in the Holocaust. Research on social representations of history helps understand why nations today struggle so hard to cleanse the historical record from acts that happened long ago. Why can’t nations and people just let bygones be bygones? It appears that historical wrongdoings cast a long shadow on a group’s moral image that has present day implications. It has implications for how the group sees itself, how it is perceived by other groups, and on policy decisions pertaining to other groups. This is clearly evident in the case of the refugee crisis in Europe. Feelings of collective guilt and historical culpability motivate a desire to repair group image and foster positive attitudes towards present day refugees. The lack of historical remorse is related to a greater sense of threat from refugees. The relationship between the present and the past are likely bi-directional. Just as historical trauma affects current social issues, so these issues motivate a specific kind of remembering of historical trauma. It would be, therefore, pertinent of decision-makers to keep in mind that current policies are not always forward looking, but carry with them the residues of a past that refuses to die.