The National Socialist Victim Associations in Czechoslovakia and its Succession States from 1989 until today.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia in Comparative Perspective

The victim associations founded or revived after 1989 and their discourses are the center of attention of the dissertation project "The National Socialist Victim Associations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 1993 until today". The political situation in the two examined countries differed greatly during the Second World War. This greatly influenced the subsequent culture of commemoration which will be examined in the context of the following organizations: the "Association of Freedom Fighters" (Verband der Freiheitskämpfer), the "Theresienstadt Initiative" (Theresienstädter Initiative), the "Committee for the Compensation of the Sinti and Roma Holocaust" (Komitee für die Entschädigung des Sinti- und Roma-Holocaust) and the "Circle of the Citizens of the Czech Republic which were expelled from the Border Area in 1938" (Kreis der Bürger der Tschechischen Republik, die 1938 aus dem Grenzgebiet vertrieben wurden) on the Czech side as well as the "Association of Antifascist Fighters" (Verband der antifaschistischen Kämpfer), "Hidden Child" and the "Association of Prisoners of the National Socialist Concentration and Prison Camps" (Verband der Häftlinge aus den nationalsozialistischen Konzentrations- und Gefangenenlagern) on the Slovakian side.

The project analyzes and compares the development of the culture of commemoration and of the discourses of victims in the examined associations. Special attention will be paid to the detailed examination of the development, definition and semantics of the notion of "victim" in the individual associations and to examining and discussing the self-perception as well as the perception by other victim groups and by the majority society.


It is the goal of this project to at least reduce the research gap currently existing in the Czech Republic as well as in Slovakia on the topics of discourses of victims and victim associations.

Václava Kutter Bubnová