Gilbert Achcar, Emily Dische-Becker, Susan Neiman, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum
Hijacked – Whatever Happened to Holocaust Memory?
For many years, Holocaust commemoration was seen as a crucial way to prevent the return of nationalism and the persecution of minorities anywhere. In the course of the postwar era, remembering the genocide of European Jews became a standard for a politics of universal human rights. In recent years, however, a very troubling development has taken place: platitudes of remembrance are uttered by the very same actors who espouse anti-democratic, xenophobic and often antisemitic agendas – coupled with an embrace of an increasingly right-wing Israeli government.
In 2022, the conference “Hijacking Memory,” sponsored by the Einstein Forum, the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, created the first international examination of these ideas, with speakers from 17 countries providing controversial discussion. Unfortunately, the criticisms offered there have only become more necessary, as high-profile (and antisemitic) political actors such as Donald Trump instrumentalize the memory of the Holocaust to attack those who advocate for Palestinian rights.
On the occasion of the release of the book which documents the conference and includes new contributions, Emily Dische-Becker, Susan Neiman, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, the original conference organizers, will examine the continuing abuse of the Holocaust in current political discourse together with the political scientist Gilbert Achcar.
Admission to the Roter Salon costs 9 € for adults and 6 € for those entitled to a reduced price. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Roter Salon or online here.
Gilbert Achcar is professor at SOAS University of London. He previously taught and researched in Beirut, Paris, and Berlin. Achcar is the author of many books, including The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010), which examines what the Holocaust means in the Arab world, and The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective (2025).
Emily Dische-Becker is a writer, film producer, researcher and curator. She studied history at Bard College. She worked as cultural manager in Beirut and has contributed to Harper’s Magazine, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit among others. She is focused on investigating the role of state authorities in cases of antisemitic and racist violence in Germany today. She is on the steering committee of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.
Susan Neiman is has been director of the Einstein Forum since 2000, after working as an associate professor of philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University. She is the author of ten books including The Unity of Reason (1994), Evil in Modern Thought (2002), Moral Clarity (2008), Why Grow Up? (2014) Learning from the Germans (2019) Left is not Woke (2023) and Call it Evil: Understanding the Trump Era (2026). Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and other publications.
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is Professor at the Technical University of Berlin and Director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism. Since 2020, she has served as spokesperson for the Berlin branch of the Research Institute Social Cohesion, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and since 2021 she has coordinated the BMBF funding initiative on antisemitism. Her most recent book is Unerwünscht. Die westdeutsche Demokratie und die Verfolgten des NS-Regimes (2025), which examines how West Germany treated the victims of Nazi persecution.