Democracy is opposed to dictatorship: Danish Holocaust memory and the didactic practices of Danish history teachers
Authors
Maren Lytje
Abstract
This article addresses the collective memory of the Holocaust in Denmark. It suggests that narratives about Denmark as a particularly democratic nation generate a national bias, which may impede the understanding of the Holocaust as a transnational event and the development of an intercultural and analytical approach to Holocaust education. Through the lenses of Jan Assmann’s theory of communicative and cultural memory and based on interviews with 25 informants, the article explores how the didactic practices of Danish history teachers intermingle with the communicative memory of the students’ families and social networks to stabilize the canonized narrative of the Denmark as a democratic nation, but also how this narrative might be challenged by drawing on alternative archives.
Keywords
Holocaust Education, Didactic Practice, Secondary Education, Democracy and National Identity, Denmark
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Date Published
15 August 2023
How to Cite
Lytje, M. (2022). Democracy is opposed to dictatorship: Danish Holocaust memory and the didactic practices of Danish history teachers. Historical Encounters, 10(1), 130-143. https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.109
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First Article in Issue Published 6 March 2023
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