Abstract
Between 2007 and 2011, the Israeli artist Yael Bartana, living in Poland, made a 3-part series of video installations titled, And Europe Will Be Stunned. The series chronicles a fictional Polish political movement called the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), the arrival of a group of Israeli Jewish pioneers who build a kibbutz in central Warsaw, and the assassination and funeral of the JRMiP’s leader. This chapter demonstrates that Bartana’s work does not simply seek to create a backward-looking utopia, but rather, mobilizes Holocaust memory through image and association, to reflect on Zionism and post-Holocaust Israeli history. Combining images of Zionist pioneers and tropes of Zionist filmography with reminders of the legacy of the Holocaust, Bartana interrogates the instrumentalization of the Holocaust in Israeli history and culture and exposes the discontinuity between Jewish victimization in Europe and Jewish domination in Israel.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
“About.” JRMiP (Website). http://www.jrmip.org/?page_id=2.
Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
Amit, Gish. “When Suffering Becomes an Identity: On the Moments of Catastrophe and the Contours of Hope.” In A Cookbook for Political Imagination, edited by Galit Eilat and Sebastian Cichocki, 209–212. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011.
Bartana, Yael, dir. Mary Koszmary (Nightmares). 2007. One-Channel Video and Sound Installation, 11 min.
———. Mur I Wieza (Wall and Tower). 2009. One-Channel Video and Sound Installation, 15 min.
———. Zamach (Assassination). 2011. One-Channel Video and Sound Installation, 35 min.
Bartana, Yael, Sebastian Cichocki, and Galit Eilat. “Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP).” In A Cookbook for Political Imagination, edited by Galit Eilat and Sebastian Cichocki, 4–5. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011.
“Congress in Berlin: And Europe Will Be Stunned.” JRMiP (Website). http://www.jrmip.org.
Hammerschlag, Sarah. The Figural Jew: Politics and Identity in Postwar French Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
“The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland: A Manifesto.” In A Cookbook for Political Imagination, edited by Galit Eilat and Sebastian Cichocki, 120–121. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011.
Lerski, Helmar, dir. Avodah (Labor). 1935; Waltham, MA: National Center for Jewish Film, 2008. DVD.
Pitchon, Avi. “Save Europe Now Ask Me How.” In A Cookbook for Political Imagination, edited by Galit Eilat and Sebastian Cichocki, 363–369. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011.
Riefenstahl, Leni, dir. Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will). 1935; Synapse Films, 2006. DVD.
Rotbard, Sharon. “Wall and Tower.” In A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture, edited by Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman, 39–58. New York: Verso, 2003.
Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.
Underhill, Karen. “Next Year in Drohobych: On the Uses of Jewish Absence.” East European Politics and Societies 25, no. 3 (August 2011): 581–596.
Young, James E. At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
———. The Texture of Memory. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weininger, M. (2020). Haunted Dreams: The Legacy of the Holocaust in And Europe Will Be Stunned. In: Aarons, V., Lassner, P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33428-4_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33428-4_26
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33427-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33428-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)