In the seventy-three years since Primo Levi extolled us to ‘never forget' the genocide of Auschwitz, remembering the violence of the Holocaust has assumed many and varied forms.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there has not been one universal way this indelible event is remembered or represented. Indeed, all acts of atrocity committed throughout the twentieth century are now recalled through a multiplicity of media and with many varied messages.
Scholars have examined a range of cultural sites that have served the purpose of remembering as well as forgetting acts of violence. These include analyses of memorials, the use of oral history, family histories, personal memories, pilgrimages, artworks and sculpture, museum exhibitions, violence on the physical landscape, material artefacts of violence and state-sanctioned commemorations. Cultural media such as film and photography have been examined as forms of commemoration. In the digital age, social media offer a new vehicle for commemorative practices recalling experiences of violence and enduring aftermaths.1 [1075]In this chapter, we attempt to capture some of the sites of memory - in Jay Winter's enduring phrase - that have emerged and are continuing to emerge in response to violent events during the twentieth century. These commemorative practices, and the sites upon which these are manifest, are not static rituals frozen in time, but are changing, contested and fluid, constantly evolving to reflect contemporary perspectives. Here we chart the shifting nature of remembrance and the forms it has taken and continues to take across a range of historical events. These include world wars, civil wars, the Holocaust, colonisation, truth and reconciliation, gender and violence, and child sexual abuse. Together, we identify the range and complexity of remembrance that has been transformed by new technologies, shifting ideologies and reinvented cultural practices.