(Croatia – Albania – Europe)
By Dr. Zlatko Kramarić| ARGUMENTUM
Ambassador of Croatia to Albania
The politics of memory is not merely remembering the past, but actively shaping relationships with history for the purpose of building identity, legitimacy, and moral standing in the present. In this sense, the commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Albania [1]and Croatia reveals two fundamentally different models of relationships with the past , reflecting all the differences between national memorial narratives and transnational European responsibility .
In contemporary Europe, remembering the Holocaust is no longer just a historical obligation. It has become one of the few remaining moral foundations of the European project – that common appeal “never again” – on which the idea of a modern Europe as a space of rights, responsibility, solidarity, self-criticism was to be built…
Croatia: memory without inner peace
Croatia belongs to those European countries that uncritically followed the German/Nazi model of solving the “Jewish question” during World War II! And this fact still represents the source of many Croatian traumas to this day, because this infamous historical episode is an integral part of our own historical drama, in which collaboration, camps, and persecution of dissenters were a cruel reality and which, as such, cannot be simply forgotten, much less clumsily justified!
This is one of the reasons why the Croatian politics of memory has remained trapped in internal identity conflicts . Instead of the Holocaust being a space of consensus in Croatian society, it is turning into an unnecessary extension of unresolved disputes about the character of the last century, where our daily lives took place exclusively within totalitarian societies! Such an approach produces a paradox: formally the European normative framework is accepted, but internally the phenomenon of the Holocaust is approached with unease, relativizations or defensive reflexes, where none of these actions includes the aspect of “moral responsibility” towards the innocent victims of a bad policy!
Self-critically speaking, Croatian society still insists on extenuating (often revisionist) narratives , which are nothing more than unnecessary attempts at relativization, in which Bleiburg is contrasted with Jasenovac, naively thinking that one crime can be justified by another, or that we can ease our conscience by constantly reminding ourselves that there are other narratives of suffering in our collective memory), [2]instead of accepting the simple but demanding fact: credibility in Europe is not built by balancing guilt, but by the ability to face one’s own historical fractures (and, of course, mistakes) without fear of losing identity. The fact that Bleiburg/Red Terror occurred after Jasenovac will in no way diminish the criminal character of the regime that established the camps.
Albania: moral exceptionalism without critical depth
The Albanian model is something else entirely. It is based on a strong, positive and internationally appealing narrative : systematic rescue of Jews, anger , [3]moral exceptionalism… Albania presents itself as a country that has passed this historical test. In the Albanian case, the memory of the Holocaust occupies a relatively clear and consensual place in public discourse. A key element is the fact that during World War II Albania was the only European country in which there were more Jews after the war than before it . The rescue of Jews, often linked to the traditional code of anger , has become a strong part of the national self-understanding .
In European and transatlantic perception, this narrative functions extremely effectively. It produces moral capital, symbolic legitimacy, and a favorable international image.[4]
But precisely because the narrative is so harmonious, it is not at all self-critical . The Holocaust does not raise broader questions about the authoritarian legacy, political violence, or repression of the communist era. Memory is used as a confirmation of national virtue, not as a space for internal questioning of all those events after World War II.
This shows the other extreme of the European problem: it is possible to have a strong memorial identity without a developed culture of critical memory. Namely, this “positive myth” often serves as a substitute for the absence of any serious discussion about the communist repression , the camps, the mass violations of human rights that represented the Albanian reality after World War II, during the rule of Enver Hoxha . In other words, Albania is morally clear about the Holocaust, but still insufficiently reflective about its own totalitarian past. The Albanian example warns that moral clarity in one historical segment must not become an alibi for silence about those less fortunate historical episodes.
The European spirit and the crisis of transnational memory
In our reflection on the European spirit, the key idea is that Europe is not just a marketplace of all possible ideas, but that it is a moral-political project based on reflection and its own disasters .
The Holocaust was supposed to be the foundation of European self-knowledge.
Today, this foundation is breaking down into three levels:
- Nationalization of memory – each state uses the past for its own narrative .
- Ritualization – commemorations become formal, without transformative power, without catharsis.
- Geopolitical instrumentalization – in times of war and global polarization, moral lessons are replaced by arguments of force, power…
Europe finds itself once again in a world where borders are being changed by force, empires are returning, and politics is increasingly based on the myth of territory, historical destiny, and the clash of civilizations. In such a world, a culture of self-critical memory becomes a weakness, not a moral virtue.
In conclusion: The Holocaust as a test of European maturity
A comparison of Croatia and Albania shows that:
- a country carries historical weight without a stable narrative ,
- the other has a stable narrative but no historical weight,
- and Europe, as a whole, possesses a normative framework devoid of spiritual energy.
If the European spirit is to survive the current geopolitical crisis, it cannot be based only on institutions, resolutions and dates. It must be renewed as a capacity for self-critical memory, moral responsibility and transnational solidarity in relation to one’s own historical abysses .
The Holocaust then ceases to be just the past. It becomes a mirror in which Europe checks whether it is still capable of being more than the sum of its fears, interests and myths.
And small countries – like Croatia and Albania – do not have to play secondary roles in all this. Their examples show whether Europe will remain a community of memories or whether it will turn into a mere space of competing, self-deluding narrative . The commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day in both countries is not only a commemorative act, but a test of the relationship to the European spirit – the spirit of responsibility, truth and universal values.
If the Holocaust remains:
- in Albania only a symbol of national virtue,
- in Croatia a permanent scene of ideological conflicts,
then the politics of memory loses its most important function: that the past becomes a source of moral orientation, and not a means of legitimizing current divisions .
[1]The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Albania has been celebrating this day for several years in a row!
[2] The logical results of such apaurin activities are the fragmentation of commemorative practices, the coexistence of multiple interpretations of the same events. Although the official discourse formally respects international standards of Holocaust remembrance, social consensus is fragile , and history remains a field of constant identity struggles.
[3]The phenomenon of “anger” deserves a separate essay!
[4]It was this element that the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasized in his address via video link
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