Holocaust Ashes

Between 1945 and i960, Holocaust ashes were part of the personal commem­oration and remembrance of the victims of violence. In the immediate postwar period this became a common form of remembrance, involving bringing home ashes of the atrocity.

In the immediate aftermath of war, respect for the dead was paramount in communities. As new technologies have emerged, family members - as a way of extending this respect - have embraced further knowledge of the violence inflicted on them. Where the violence enacted in the first half of the twentieth century is remembered today through the vectors of blood, bodies and bones, as outlined above, the violent events explored in these next sections - namely, the Holocaust, decolonisation and settler colonialism, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions of the 1990s and 2000s - have had their memory enacted through pilgrimages, places and gatherings. In the next section, we will take each of these in turn.