Remembrance and Commemoration generation who experienced displacement and expulsion first-hand tended to collectively think of themselves as victims, while the generation of their children adopted a more critical stance, particularly in the context of Germany’s responsibility for a war of extermination. This assessment applies primarily to West Germany since the 1970s; East Germany’s anti-fascist In German, the set phrase Flucht und Vertreibung – displacement and expulsion – refers specifically to the forced migration of some 14 million Germans: displacement mostly relates to the period shortly before the end of the Second World War; expulsions were mainly part of its aftermath, whether through immediate removal or compulsory expatriation many years later. Remarkably, ‘displacement and expulsion’ has become a specific commemorative composite, an umbrella term for the entirety of official and private forms of remembrance. Yet, as the historical events continue to recede, repeating the same commemorative tropes also runs the risk of offering little more than a rather staid historical narrative. Aleida Assmann, a renowned expert on cultural memory, has voiced her concern that stagnating commemoration runs counter to empirical knowledge which is based on constant change. The memory of displacement and expulsion has always received a fair amount of criticism, not least because it has been so closely intertwined with politics. In fact, the expulsion of the Germans has loomed very large in the generational battles over the memory of the Nazi era, the Second World War and German culpability. The reunification of East and West Germany stance summarily absolved its citizens of shared moral responsibility for Nazi tyranny. Since the 1990s, the generation of the grandchildren in a now reunified Germany have rediscovered the fate that befell their grandparents. This has led to growing interest both in the cultural heritage of the former Eastern territories and in their grandparents’ lives and traumatic experiences. Ersatz-Heimat – substitutes for lost homelands There can be no doubt that the experience of losing house, home and Heimat – often under violent circumstances – has left a permanent mark on many families in Germany. The memory of displacement and expulsion now extends over three generations each of whom have developed their own points of view, which may lead to disagreements and quarrels within families. The ANDREA MOLL in 1990 abolished one of the most significant ramifications of the Second World War – the division of Germany. Together with the fall of the Soviet Union this political change has impacted on the remembrance of displacement and expulsion in a range of important, and at times unexpected, ways.
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