Seizing the Day: Why Britain Will Benefit from Holocaust Memorial Day

In his rejoinder to Dan Stone, Cesarani attempts to answer the objections raised by the latter against the establishment of a Holocaust memorial day in Britain. Using the public response (so far) to the recent opening of the Imperial War Museum's permanent Holocaust exhibition as a test case, he argues that, contrary to Stone's worry that no one would register the existence of a memorial day, the British public shows every sign of being far from indifferent to the events being 'commemorated'. Cesarani characterizes Stone's other concerns as a counsel of despair. It is up to those who dissent from a safely distanced, homogenized or reductive view of the Jewish tragedy-or from a view of the British government as being anything but blameless in the commission of international human rights abuses and genocides, both historical and contemporary-to make sure that the 'plurality of memory' that Stone advocates is not traduced by the events of the day.