This panel explores the challenges facing Holocaust memory in Latin America, during profound political and economic changes forcing communities and nations to reimagine the value of such memory for their futures. After the Holocaust, thousands of survivors migrated to Latin America. They found refuge in their new homes, but in some cases, also lived through periods of extreme political violence, including dictatorship, antisemitism, and political repression. In the 1990s, Holocaust survivors took on a greater role in the public sphere through publications, talks, films, and testimonies, part of what Annette Wieviorka calls the “era of the witness.” Simultaneously, testimony became a powerful response to political violence across Latin America more broadly, a foundation for grassroots human rights movements and truth commissions using memory to establish accountability and build democracy. With recent political changes across the Americas, a new era of witnessing is unfolding, with new stakes for Holocaust memory at the level of policy and practice. Literary scholar Estelle Tarica examines the complexities of “Never Again” in Guatemala in the wake of Gaza, considering the dynamics of post-Holocaust and human rights discourse. Historian Emmanuel Kahan explores the tensions over Holocaust memory in Argentina and the way the nation is engaging it in relation to human rights and against terrorism. We then turn to the construction of Holocaust memory in families and communities. Political scientist Yael Siman explores the construction of Holocaust memory and narratives at the family level in Mexico, considering the interplay with archives and more institutionalized forms of memory. Anthropologist Natasha Zaretsky examines the way Argentines are reimagining the transmission of survivor’s experiences through new digital and cultural practices, reengaging testimony to build belonging and civil society in times of crisis.
Estelle Tarica, University of California, Berkeley, "‘Nunca Más’ ≠ ‘Never Again’ – The View from Guatemala"
What is the future of Holocaust memory? The question cannot be separated from the ethical and political considerations that make the Holocaust event meaningful to successive generations. For decades the answer to the question “why do we remember?” has been summed up in the words “Never Again.” What does the phrase mean beyond signaling our abhorrence of past events? Divergent understandings of “Never Again” have come out into the open since October 7, 2023 and the subsequent genocide in Gaza, exemplified in the distinction between a universalist approach (Never Again for Anyone) and an ethno-particularist one (Never Again for the Jews). But these divergences were present in latent form long before. The difference between “Nunca más” and “Never Again” is one case of a pre-existing internal divergence, papered over by the apparent linguistic equivalence. Both phrases reflect an ethos of remembrance as symbolic reparation to the victims. But “Nunca más” also connotes a post-conflict process of truth and national reconciliation, a meaning absent from the English-language “Never Again” and from ethno-particularist forms of Jewish Holocaust remembrance. This paper traces out the various ways that “Nunca más” overlaps with “Never Again” yet is also distinct from it. Drawing on contemporary post-conflict Guatemala, it examines a school curriculum, recent exhibits at Guatemala’s Holocaust Museum, and prose fiction by Eduardo Halfon. The paper proposes that there is real competition between these two approaches in Guatemala, but that as of this writing, attempts to make the ethno-particular Jewish memory of “Never again” more dominant than the hemispheric ethos of “Nunca más” have lost ground.
Emmanuel Kahan, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, "Pasts and Futures of Holocaust Memory in Argentina: From the Defense of Human Rights to the Fight Against Terrorism"
In this paper, I seek to problematize the interpretative horizons through which Holocaust memory has been and continues to be framed within public debate in Argentina. A survey of the meanings attributed to this historical experience will allow us to identify the new configurations of the present moment, particularly those that associate it with the denunciation of international terrorism. What kinds of distances are being operationalized with respect to earlier identifications that linked Holocaust memory to the human rights agenda in the country? How do these new representations come into play as they interact with other actors, both institutional and individual? To what extent can this be understood as a local phenomenon, or rather as part of a broader global climate?
Emmanuel Kahan, CONICET - Universidad Nacional de La Plata, "Pasado y futuros de la memoria del Holocausto en Argentina: de la defensa de los derechos humanos a la lucha contra el terrorismo"
En este trabajo nos interesa problematizar cuáles fueron y están siendo los horizontes interpretativos de la memoria del Holocausto en el debate público en argentino. Un relevamiento de cuáles fueron los sentidos con los cuales fue invocada aquella experiencia histórica nos permitirá reconocer las novedades del tiempo actual que la asocia a la denuncia del terrorismo internacional. ¿Qué distancia se operacionaliza respecto de identificaciones previas que la memoria del Holocausto estableció en relación a la agenda de Derechos Humanos en el país? ¿Cómo las nuevas representaciones se ponen en juego al relacionarse con otros actores, tanto institucionales como individuales? ¿En qué medida se trata de un fenómeno local o puede comprenderse como parte de un clima global?
Yael Siman, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City, "Reconstruction and Deconstruction of Family Memories of the Holocaust in Mexico"
Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Mexico were part of a small collective that developed various ways of remembering the Holocaust. Initially, they grouped themselves according to their national origin. Later, they established their own survivors’ organization. The process of Holocaust musealization was relatively late: it began in 1970 with a small museum within the Kehilah, and several years later was consolidated with the creation of a major museum—Memory and Tolerance—in Mexico City’s downtown.
While these initiatives have been the subject of recent study, much less is known about how this memory has been constructed within families and what that implies for the future. During the course of my research, several families shared with me the stories of those who survived the Holocaust. Their contributions—both narratives and sources—have been essential. However, in some cases we discovered that what their relatives told them does not necessarily match, or reveals significant gaps when compared to, the information found in historical archives.
This presentation examines how Holocaust memory is constructed in Mexico from a level distinct from that of the state or institutionalized initiatives. Instead, the focus is on the family: its narratives, its sources, and the information about them found in historical archives. The aim is, on the one hand, to reconstruct Holocaust family histories, and on the other, to deconstruct crystallized memories through the analysis of multiple sources. Special attention is given to the experiences of survival, flight and immigration to Mexico.
Both the historical reconstruction of these family trajectories and the deconstruction of their narratives can contribute to processes of familial repair, many decades after the genocide.
Natasha Zaretsky, New York University, "On the Borders of Generative Witnessing: The Ethics and Politics of Cultural and Digital Transmission of Holocaust Memory in Argentina"
Argentina–home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America–is a nation with multiple histories of violence and loss, including the 1976-1983 dictatorship and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society, an attack that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds, and thirty years later, still remains in a state of impunity. Within this context, Holocaust memory has become part of a broader commemorative landscape, a way for the community to navigate belonging in the public sphere. In the 1990s, Jewish voices took on a more visible presence in Argentina's public sphere following the AMIA bombing, coinciding with a broader global acknowledgment of Holocaust survivors’ experiences in what Annette Wieviorka calls the “era of the witness.” In Argentina, the group Generations of the Shoah has become an important space for multiple generations, including child survivors, 2nd and 3rd generation survivors, using innovative approaches to embodied transmission of memory through their “Proyecto Aprendiz” initiative. This reimagines the centrality of the survivor’s voice and lived experience to Holocaust memory for new generations. We also see this in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony program, which uses artificial intelligence to recreate a simulated exchange with survivors, also currently in use at the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires. Building on ethnographic research, this paper examines the reimagining of witnessing through these generative practices, which also expose the tensions between local and transnational forces, while also considering the ethics of new digital technology in resituating the voice of the survivor in the public imaginary during times of democratic crisis.
20260729T110020260729T1230America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires1.17. The Futures of Holocaust Memory in Latin America [ES/EN]SV303MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
