Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic study analyses Jewish life in a multicultural postsocialist town in Slovakia. Remembrance culture, socio-cultural, economic and political past and present will be considered to understand changes in the Jewish community's religious and cultural life.

Paper long abstract:

The Jewish community of Košice, the second biggest town of Slovakia, had 12.000 members, 20% of the total population, before World War II.

Officially there are 280 people in the Jewish community today. Visitors can discover the rich Jewish history in many places, such as the cemeteries where the graves and their inscriptions reveal different religious affiliations of the past community and the wealth of many Jewish families.

In the city centre, there are many buildings that were constructed and used by the Jewish community. They do not only tell the story of the community's integration into everyday life in town but also carry visible marks of the Holocaust and the communist era of repression and destruction.

People´s biographies and their connection with all these places draw various images of remembering. What feelings and impact on Jewish lives and identity-construction do these places evoke? In what way are stories and the significance of these places rendered to the majority group? How do this minority's life and interaction with the majority emerge in the narratives? How have policies of the local officials regarding these places affected the life of the Jewish community?

Narrative biographical and "expert" interviews, participant observation, archive and media research, as well as the analysis of architecture and artefacts of the Jewish community will answer these questions.