Holocaust Consciousness and Colonial Legacies in Guatemala
摘要
Since 2015, Guatemala has witnessed significant developments in Holocaust awareness. National and international actors have collaborated on several initiatives, including the integration of a Holocaust module into the national school curriculum, an oral history project, and the establishment of a Holocaust Museum in Guatemala City, located across from the Kaji Tulam Memory Museum, which commemorates atrocities from Guatemala’s civil war. What has driven this surge in Holocaust-related initiatives in Guatemala? This chapter explores the memory practices involved and their interaction with Holocaust remembrance within Guatemala’s Jewish community. It also examines how the Holocaust is being contextualised alongside the genocide of Guatemala’s Mayan people, particularly from the sixteenth century and during the 1980s “scorched earth” campaigns led by President Efraín Ríos Montt and other military politicians. The chapter maps the contemporary landscape of Holocaust consciousness in Guatemala, analysing the diverse projects and their aims, and investigating the intersecting histories that have shaped Holocaust memory in the country.