Subcontractors of Guilt

Esra Özyürek is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths and Shared Values at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe (2015).

• Introduction: German Holocaust Memory and the Redemptive Path toward Democracy1. Rebelling against the Father, Democratizing the Family2. Export-Import Theory of Muslim Antisemitism in Germany3. Wrong Emotions / Wrong Empathy for the Holocaust4. Subcontracting Guilt, Policing Victimhood5. Visiting Auschwitz as Pilgrimage and as Shock TherapyConclusion: Can Muslims Flip the Script of the German Memory Theater?

"Esra Özyürek has written a path-breaking and much needed book on the multifaceted, constitutive ways by which Turkish- and Arab-background migrants shaped German Holocaust memory and how it shaped their identity in return. Based on ethnographic research, this is a fundamental contribution that rewrites our understanding of the development of Holocaust memory in Germany"—Alon Confino, author of A World Without Jews "German Holocaust memory culture is often held up as a model for other nations to imitate. But, as Esra Özyürek shows in this provocative and ethnographically rich book, the story is much more complicated. Subcontractors of Guilt is a fascinating study of belonging and exclusion in post-Holocaust Germany and a must-read for all who are interested in contemporary Europe."—Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization "Subcontractors of Guilt is an essential intervention into contemporary German debates around migration, Muslim minorities, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust memory. By centering the perspectives of young German Muslims, Özyürek's insightful study offers an important corrective to narratives that too often fail to do so."—Fatima El-Tayeb, Yale University "This powerful, well-informed book would make a fine addition to any academic library. Recommended."—S. Anderson, CHOICE "Rooted both in subtle and sophisticated anthropological fieldwork and in sharp historical and theoretical analysis, Özyürek's study offers a deeply illuminating window into the worldview and lived experience of the young male Turkish and Arab Germans who are drawn into this memory work. It also provides an incisive dissection of the elisions, confusions and evasions of these culturally targeted programmes. Subcontractors of Guilt should be required reading for anybody seeking to understand the fundamental role of historical memory in the deep-seated problematics of ethnic and religious inclusion in contemporary Germany."—Adam Sutcliffe, ReOrient "Subcontractors of Guilt is essential reading for students, researchers, teachers, as well as the general public interested in the entangled questions of Holocaust memory culture, national belonging, migration, Muslims, and the making of the postwar German social contract."—Didem Udal, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies