Sean Eedy (PhD 2016) has recently published “Four colour anti-fascism: postwar narratives and the obfuscation of the Holocaust in East German comics” in a special issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish History entitled “Beyond Maus: Comic Books, Graphic Novels and the Holocaust.”
Drawing on his dissertation research, Eedy shows that it wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that East German children’s literature took up the history of the war and genocide. Highlighting the anti-fascist struggle and not Jewish suffering, the history of the Holocaust was deployed by the regime as an opportunity to educate children to be more conscious socialist citizens focused on the class struggle and not matters of violence and identity.
Eedy occasionally teaches as a sessional instructor in the department of History and the Institute for European and Russian Studies.