The Concept of Generation and the Ethics of Memory after the Shoah

In my presentation I would like to examine the concept of generation from the ethical perspective. In what sense the concept of generation is an ethical one? I will relate to Ethics of Memory by Avishai Margalit to show how the concept of generation can be understood in terms of ethical division of labour concerning the obligations to remember, as well as the responsibility for the present and the future. Margalit distinguishes ethics of memory based on thick relations from the morality of memory based on thin relations – memory on behalf humanity. The Shoah memory is central for Margalit’s notion of morality of memory. I will examine this concept in comparison with sociological analyzes by Nathan Sznaider and Daniel Levy presented in Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age. The authors argue that globalized memories of the Shoah provide foundations for transnational, cosmopolitan memory and ethics that transcends ethnic and national boundaries.

I would like to suggest that both accounts pose questions essential to frame frame the concept of generation in relation to the Shoah memory: what are the differences between the idea of morality of memory and cosmopolitan memories and ethics, how do global memories of the Shoah function in the horizon of collective memory of different nations and what kind of tensions and narratives arise at the juncture of those two modes of memory, is the concept of generation relevant for conceptualizing cosmopolitan ethics grounded in the Shoah memory?