HGS Annual Lecture 2025: Subcontractors of Guilt
At the turn of the millennium, Middle Eastern and Muslim Germans had rather unexpectedly become central to the country's Holocaust memory culture—not as welcome participants, but as targets for re-education and reform. Since then, Turkish- and Arab-Germans have been considered as the prime obstacles to German national reconciliation with its Nazi past, a status shared to a lesser degree by Germans from the formerly socialist East Germany.
In her lecture, Esra Özyürek explains that the German government, German NGOs, and Muslim minority groups have begun to design Holocaust education and anti-Semitism prevention programs specifically tailored for Muslim immigrants and refugees, so that they, too, can learn the lessons of the Holocaust and embrace Germany's most important postwar democratic political values.
After the lecture, there will be a Q&A with the speaker.
Date and time: 8 October, 2025, 15:45hr
Location: Aula Universiteit van Amsterdam, Singel 411, Amsterdam
About the book Subcontractors of Guilt
Based on ethnographic research conducted over a decade, Subcontractors of Guilt explores when, how, and why Muslim Germans have moved to the center of Holocaust memory discussions. Esra Özyürek argues that German society "subcontracts" guilt of the Holocaust to new minority immigrant arrivals, with the false promise of this process leading to inclusion into the German social contract and equality with other members of postwar German society. By focusing on the recently formed but already sizable sector of Muslim-only anti-Semitism and Holocaust education programs, this book explores the paradoxes of postwar German national identity.
About Esra Özyürek
Professor Esra Özyürek joined University of Cambridge after having taught at the London School of Economics and University of California, San Deigo. She completed her PhD at the University of Michigan and prior to that she received and completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Political Science at Bogazici University, Istanbul.
To register
The lecture is free of charge, but registration is required. Please send an email before October 6 to bestuurssecretariaat@niod.knaw.nl.
Programme
- 15:45 Doors open
- 16:00 Introduction by Uğur Üngör
- 16:05 Lecture by Esra Özyürek and Q&A
- 17:15 Reception