Reversed Memory: Commemorating the Past through Coverage of the Present

On the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism (also known in Israel as ‘Holocaust Remembrance Day’ or ‘Holocaust Day’) 2012, the Israeli elite newspaper Haaretz published a provocative op-ed, written by Yoram Kaniuk, one of the country’s prominent novelists, bearing the title ‘Celebrate Holocaust Day.’ Referenced both on the newspaper’s front page and on its internet homepage the piece claimed that ‘Holocaust Day should be a day of joy. Tens of thousands of people survived, returned to life, raised children and grandchildren… In Auschwitz, people became the greatest heroes in history… Holocaust Day should be a national holiday of joy, celebrating the rescue [and] the heroism of the survivors’ (Kaniuk, 2012). A few days earlier, the popular daily Yedioth Ahronoth had published a feature story bearing the title ‘We Took-Off Like the Phoenix’ (Duek, 2012) that narrated the story of Holocaust survivors who became combat pilots in the Israeli air force (see Figure 7.1).