UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies

The author uses the term “constructing victimhood” to characterize this specific relation, an expression that might sound awkward in the context of Nazi victimization since terms like ‘construction’ or ‘production,’ when used to describe social, cultural and political phenomena, tend to convey the notion that something is invented or even fabricated, therefore not a given reality. It is of course not my intention to leave this impression since there is no doubt about the true nature of Nazi persecution. But instead, she uses the term in an attempt at capturing developments and phenomena of the immediate post-war era that testify to grappling with the extraordinary character of Nazi crimes.