No New Graves Will Be Here: Memorials and Cultural Memory of the Holocaust in Vojvodina, Northern Serbia

The proposed lecture is based on my ongoing research "Vojvodina Holocaust Memorials" (http://vhmproject.org/), which investigates patterns of Holocaust commemoration in Vojvodina, an autonomous region in northern Serbia. This is a pioneering research attempting to contribute to current discussions on cultural memory by examining Holocaust memorials in Vojvodina. In this lecture, I will focus on Jewish communal memorials in Jewish cemeteries.
After a brief introduction on Vojvodina Jewry`s recent history and the developments and changes in the cultural memory of the Holocaust, I will provide a more extensive analysis of selected memorials placing them in the wider context of local patterns of commemoration.

I will examine key patterns of remembrance developed and nurtured by the Vojvodina Jewish communities from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust until the present day through analysis of commemorative inscriptions and formal and iconographic characteristics of the memorials as well as of commemoration ceremonies held at these sites. In addition, I will present an overview of the alarming state in which some of these memorials are today.