Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
History
Advisor
Dagmar Herzog
Committee Members
Simon Davis
Sarah Covington
Omer Bartov
Avinoam Patt
Subject Categories
European History | Holocaust and Genocide Studies | Jewish Studies | Other History
Keywords
Shoah Survivors, Zionism, Israel/Palestine, Conceptual History
Abstract
This dissertation examines the history of Kibbutz Buchenwald as it was recorded by leading kibbutz members in a collective diary and supplementary bulletins and newsletters between 1945-1948. At the heart of the dissertation is the Koselleckian problematization of natural time as a category that can explain the complexity of human experience in history, and, relatedly, the postulation that memory is malleable, context-dependent, and bound by social, ideological, and cultural frameworks. Looking at the ways survivors perceived the relationship between their past and future at the postwar existential threshold of change, I ask: what role did Shoah memory play in survivors’ journey from liberation in Germany to settlement in nascent Israel and how did it shape the way survivors formed and understood ideologies, as well as individual and community identities related to Judaism, Jewishness, the Zionist project, and, independently, being human. Having survived the Shoah inspired Kibbutz Buchenwald’s raison d’être –– proving that Jews of different traditions, backgrounds, and political views can rise above ideological differences for the benefit, and under the banner, of unity. Far from only traumatic, I argue, Shoah memory in Kibbutz Buchenwald was an ever-present, adapting aggregate of emotionally mixed recollections that functioned as a dynamic resource for individual and communal identity formation. Neither silenced nor hidden, the Buchenwalders’ space of experience in the Nazi camps was constantly invoked as a uniting force, as a source of pride and strength, and as a fountain of motivation that defined and propelled the Buchenwalders’ journey toward a remedial horizon of expectation grounded in Zionist tenets of immigration, settlement, communal labor, and moral renewal, and imbued their every step with purpose and meaning.
Recommended Citation
Liav, Idan P., "Buchenwald, Palestine: A Kibbutz" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6642
Included in
European History Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Other History Commons
