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Anna Sarri Krantz has defended her thesis

Anna Sarri Krantz at the Department of Sociology has defended her doctoral thesis in social anthropology: "Third Generation Survivors, Tredje generationens överlevande – en socialantropologisk studie om minne, antisemitism och identitet i spåret av Förintelsen” today, 25th October at 10:00 in Stora Algatans auditorium in Lund.

Discussant: Professor Bodil Liljefors Persson, religionsvetenskap at Malmö University.

Examination committee: Ingrid Lomfors (Forum för levande historia), Susanne Nylund Skog (Institutet för språk och folkminnen, Uppsala Universitet) and Ulf Johansson Dahre (Avdelningen för socialantropologi, Lunds Universitet).

Supervisors: Christer Lindberg and Lisa Eklund.

Abstract:
The Holocaust is an event that lives on in societies’ consciousness in the form of memorial monuments and museums, and is processed by research institutions and authorities. My own journey began when meeting upper secondary students who denied the Holocaust, and I soon came in contact with a group who identify themselves as Third Generation Survivors; grandchildren of those who survived the Holocaust. The purpose of this study is to investigate the third generation´s identity and how it is shaped by the memory of the Holocaust, by contemporary antisemitism and by the influence of Jewish institutions.

The ethnographic survey, focusing on interviews and observations, revealed that there is a pronounced will to remember the Holocaust. For some, it is important to remember in a private context while others consider that the more public commemoration ceremonies meet the need. At the same time, the grandchildren live in a time of both manifest and latent antisemitism, which influences the formation of their identity and their autobiography. However, their identity is not only shaped by past and present antisemitism but also by the Jewish institutions, the Jewish calendar as well as cultural and social guidelines. In the conclusions of the study, it can be seen that the Third Generation´s remembrance of the Holocaust is largely based on a generational transfer of memory that has taken place during the participants’ lives through interaction with the survival generation. The results also show that they have strategies to deal with contemporary alongside historical antisemitism experienced by the survivors. This together constitutes one of the fundaments of both their individual and their collective identity. The results also show that the third generation chooses to live a Jewish life, within the framework of the Jewish congregation in Stockholm, based on individual choices and decisions.

Read the doctoral thesis: Third Generation Survivors - Tredje generationens överlevande – en socialantropologisk studie om minne, antisemitism och identitet i spåret av Förintelsen