What did people in Britain know (or not know) about the Holocaust as it was unfolding? Did the news of what was happening to the victims of Nazi Persecution reach them? What were people''s attitudes towards antisemitism? What were the reactions of those in the streets compared to the bigger political and national responses to the War in Europe? What role might such attitudes have played in shaping our memorial practices in 21st century Britain? As part of the Mass-Observation movement (1937- 1950s), more than 500 volunteer Mass-Observes responded to day surveys and directives and wrote diaries capturing the details of their daily lives during the Second World War. Reviving the national writing panel in 1981, the Mass Observation Project continues to collect data on the thoughts and opinions of everyday people in Britain. Investigating this material through the lens of the Holocaust, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars maps out the traces, absences and connections that point to nuanced understandings about what individuals knew before, during and after the Holocaust. Each chapter grapples with the Mass-Observation Online resource using a different methodological approach rooted in the disciplines of history, geography, digital humanities, psychology, education, anthropology, language and translation, refugee studies and archival research. By placing the collection into conversation with other primary sources, such as newspapers, cabinet papers and testimonies, contributors to this volume look upon Mass-Observation materials anew to identify where the Holocaust is both present and absent in the lives of locals and how that speaks to the complex discourses around the Holocaust and national memory in the UK today.

Autorentext
Kate Marrison is Research Fellow with the Landecker Digital Memory Lab at the University of Sussex, UK.

Inhalt

Preface
Introduction: The Holocaust in the Margins of the Mass Observation Archive Kate Marrison (University of Sussex, UK)
Part I: Attitudes and Antisemitism

1. How Social Psychological Theories Explain Wartime Hostility towards Jews Anthony Kauders (Keele University, UK)
2. Using the Mass-Observation Archive to understand British Public Opinion on the Treatment of Germans and Austrians resident in Britain, 1939-1940 Rachel Pistol (Kings College London, UK)
3. Refugees' Memoirs of Nazi Persecution for British Readers before 1945 Ellen Pilsworth (University of Reading, UK)
4. 'We came here because of the Rain': The Horror of the German Concentration Camp and Mass Observation Gideon Reuveni (University of Sussex, UK)
   Part II: Reactions and Responses
5. Was Justice Seen to Be Done? Mass-Observation and Public Reflections on Nazi Atrocities in the Aftermath of the Nuremberg Tribunal Caroline Sharples (University of Roehampton, UK)
6. The Lens of War Lucy Hooberman (Independent Scholar, UK)
7. Coming to Britain 2000 Directive Khaleda Brophy-Harmer (University of Southampton, UK)
8. 'If you have visited Auschwitz.please tell us about your reaction': Reconsidering Holocaust Consciousness in Britain in the Early 21st Century through the Lens of the Mass Observation Archive Tim Cole (University of Bristol, UK)
   Part III: Education and Commemoration
9. Comparing the Mass Observation Archive and the German-Jewish Collections (University of Sussex) to understand the Holocaust Samira Teuteberg (Kew Gardens, UK)
10. Dear Diary.a Consideration of the Wartime Experiences of Young People through their Journaled Accounts Alasdair Richardson (University of Winchester, UK)
11. The Interruption of the Interface: Doing Digital Holocaust Memory Practice with Mass Observation Online Kate Marrison (University of Sussex, UK)
12. Student Responses Undergraduate Students (University of Sussex, UK)
    Afterword Tony Kushner (University of Southampton, UK)
    Notes
    Index