Holocaust uniqueness debate

The Jerusalem school of Jewish history originated in the 1920s and it sought to document Jewish history from a national, as opposed to a religious or philosophical perspective. It developed the notion that Jewish history itself was unique, a progenitor to the idea of the uniqueness of the Holocaust.{{sfn|Blatman|2015|p=22}} The uniqueness of the Holocaust was advanced while it was ongoing by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), but rejected by governments{{which|reason=The occupation governments, or the democratic governments in exile?|date=December 2024}} of countries in German-occupied Europe.{{sfn|Moses|2021|pp=195, 206}} In the early decades of Holocaust studies, scholars approached the Holocaust as a genocide unique in its reach and specificity.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=206}} Holocaust uniqueness became a subject for scholars in the 1970s and 1980s, in response to efforts to historicize the Holocaust via such concepts as totalitarianism, fascism, functionalism, modernity, and genocide.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|pp=80–81}}

In West Germany, the {{lang|de|Historikerstreit}} ("historians' dispute") erupted in the late 1980s over attempts to challenge the position of the Holocaust in West German historiographical orthodoxy and compare Nazi Germany with the Soviet Union. Critics saw this challenge as an attempt to relativize the Holocaust.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=207}} In the 1980s and 1990s, a set of scholars, including Emil Fackenheim, Lucy Dawidowicz, Saul Friedländer, Yehuda Bauer, Steven Katz, Deborah Lipstadt, and Daniel Goldhagen—mostly from the field of Jewish studies—authored various studies to prove the Holocaust's uniqueness.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|p=81}} They were challenged by another set of scholars from a wide diversity of viewpoints that rejected the uniqueness of the Holocaust and compared it to other events, which was then met with an angry backlash from uniqueness supporters.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|pp=85–86}} Around the turn of the twenty-first century, polemical approaches for the debate were exchanged for analytical ones relating to claims of uniqueness in Holocaust memory.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|pp=86–87}} By 2021 there were few scholars who were still making the uniqueness argument.{{sfn|Krondorfer|2021|p=393 }}

Unlike most Orthodox Jewish rabbis and theologians, the Lubavitcher Rebbe eventually came to the conclusion that the Holocaust was historically and theologically unprecedented and could not be understood with older religious categories such as sin, punishment, or Tikkun.{{cite journal |last1=Reiser |first1=Daniel |title=The Holocaust as an (UN)Exceptional Phenomenon: Development and Change in the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Outlook |journal=Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience |date=2024 |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=40–59 |doi=10.1093/mj/kjae003}}

In the twenty first century, an increasing body of scholarship challenged the claims of uniqueness proponents. While Holocaust scholars have largely moved beyond the uniqueness debate,{{cite journal |last1=Sutcliffe |first1=Adam |title=Whose Feelings Matter? Holocaust Memory, Empathy, and Redemptive Anti-Antisemitism |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2022 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=222–242 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2022.2160533 |doi-access=free}}{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2015|pp=78–79}} belief that the Holocaust is unique continues to be entrenched in public consciousness and moral pedagogy in the West. In 2021, A. Dirk Moses initiated the catechism debate, challenging the uniqueness of the Holocaust in German Holocaust memory. The same year, in his book The Problems of Genocide, Moses argued that the development of the concept of genocide based on the Holocaust led to disregard of other forms of mass civilian death that could not be analogized to the Holocaust.{{sfn|Moses|2021|p=236}}

Proponents of uniqueness argue that the Holocaust had unique aspects which were not found in other historical events.{{cite book |first=Dan |last=Michman |chapter=The Jewish Dimension of the Holocaust in Dire Straits? Current Challenges of Interpretation and Scope |editor-first=Norman |editor-last=Goda |title=Jewish Histories of the Holocaust. New Transnational Approaches |location=New York |publisher=Berghahn Books |date=2014 |pages=17–38 |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/28025506}}{{cite book |first=Dan |last=Michman |title=Holocaust Historiography between 1990 to 2021 in Context(s): New Insights, Perceptions, Understandings and Avenues |series=An Overview and Analysis, Search and Research Series |volume=34 |location=Jerusalem |publisher=Yad Vashem |date=2022 |url=https://www.academia.edu/77809179}} Historian Daniel Blatman sums up the uniqueness position as arguing it was the "only genocide in which the murderers' goal was the total extermination of the victim, with no rational or pragmatic reason", but Blatman and other scholars say this is not true of the Holocaust, either.{{sfn|Blatman|2015|p=24}} For example, historian Dan Stone writes that Bauer's definition of "Holocaust" as "total destruction", unlike all other genocides in history, is mistaken because in the Holocaust destruction was not total.{{sfn|Stone|2010|p=210}} Opponents argue that since every historical event has unique features,{{sfn|Blatman|2015|p=22}} uniqueness proponents are in fact making ideological rather than historical claims.{{sfn|Stone|2004|p=129}}{{sfn|Blatman|2015|p=25}}

German historian Wolfgang Benz argues that the six million victims alone makes the Holocaust "a unique crime in the history of mankind".{{Cite book |last=Benz |first=Wolfgang |author-link=Wolfgang Benz |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustgermanh0000benz |title=The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-231-11215-7 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=152 |language=en}} On the other hand, historian Annette F. Timm argues that the Holocaust was unique due to the categorical rejection of any single Jewish person from being assimilated.{{Cite book |last=Timm |first=Annette F. |url=https://archive.org/details/genocide-the-power-and-problems-of-a-concept-9780228009511_compress_202404 |title=Genocide: The Power and Problems of a Concept |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-2280-0951-1 |editor1-last=Graziosi |editor1-first=Andrea |pages=49 |language=en |editor2-last=Sysyn |editor2-first=Frank E.}}

Critics of the uniqueness concept have argued that it is Eurocentric.{{cite book |last1=Kellenbach |first1=Katharina von |title=The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429317026-44/beyond-competitive-memory-katharina-von-kellenbach |chapter=Beyond competitive memory: The preeminence of the Holocaust in religious studies |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780429317026-44 |isbn=978-0-429-31702-6 |s2cid=241287958 }}{{cite book |last1=Lim |first1=Jie-Hyun |title=Global Easts: Remembering, Imagining, Mobilizing |date=2022 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-55664-4 |page=80 |language=en |chapter=The Second World War in Global Memory Space}} Some Holocaust scholars who support the uniqueness concept deny other genocides, such as the Romani Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Some observers claim that the Holocaust was influenced by the earlier Herero and Nama genocide in German South West Africa, while others reject the comparison.{{cite web |first1=Robert |last1=Rozett |first2=Dan |last2=Michman |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/the-unprecedented-nature-of-the-holocaust.html |title=The Unprecedented Nature of the Holocaust and its Unique Features: Some Reflections - Part I |date=3 January 2021 |publisher=Yad Vashem |access-date=2 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240728204824/https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/the-unprecedented-nature-of-the-holocaust.html |archive-date=28 July 2024}}{{cite journal |title='We're equal to the Jews who were destroyed. [. . .] Compensate us, too'. An affective (un)remembering of Germany's colonial past? |date=2022 |publisher=Sage Journals |doi=10.1177/17506980211044083 |last1=Rausch |first1=Sahra |journal=Memory Studies |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=418–435 |doi-access=free}} The German historian Jürgen Zimmerer has critiqued both German liberals and German conservatives who do not see "continuities" between the Namibian genocide and the Holocaust, claiming that conservatives have an unwillingness to examine German colonial history and that liberals have a "fear of challenging the dogma of Holocaust uniqueness".{{cite journal |last=Adhikari |first=Mohamed |author-link=Mohamed Adhikari |date=November 2008 |url=https://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/kronos/v34n1/v34n1a14.pdf |title='Streams of blood and streams of money': New perspectives on the annihilation of the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia, 1904-1908 |journal=Kronos |volume=34 |issue=34 |publisher=SciELO |pages=303–320 |jstor=41056613 |access-date=2 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240802201055/https://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/kronos/v34n1/v34n1a14.pdf |archive-date=2 August 2024}}

Christian Gerlach argues that putting the Holocaust above other atrocities involves "constantly devaluing and demoting all other victim groups", which he calls racist.{{cite journal |last1=Gerlach |first1=Christian |title=Famines and Imperialism: For a Different History of World War II |journal=Conditions of Violence |date=2024 |pages=165 |doi=10.1515/9783111568737-006 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111568737-006/html |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |isbn=978-3-11-156873-7 |language=en}}

• Armenian genocide and the Holocaust
• Consequences of Nazism
• Genocides in history
• Genocide recognition politics
• Genocide studies
• Link between the Herero genocide and the Holocaust
• History of antisemitism
• The Holocaust and the Nakba
• Holocaust denial
• Holocaust studies
• Holocaust trivialization
• Japanese war crimes
• Jews as the chosen people
• List of ethnic cleansing campaigns
• List of genocides
• Racism in Israel
• Racism in Jewish communities
• War crimes in World War II

{{reflist}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Blatman |first1=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Blatman |title=Holocaust scholarship: towards a post-uniqueness era |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2015 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=21–43 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2015.991206 |s2cid=144542220}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Bomholt Nielsen |first1=Mads |title=Contextualising colonial violence: Causality, continuity and the Holocaust |journal=History Compass |date=2021 |volume=19 |issue=12 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12701 |s2cid=244559549}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Judaken |first1=Jonathan |title=Introduction |journal=The American Historical Review |date=2018 |volume=123 |issue=4 |pages=1122–1138 |doi=10.1093/ahr/rhy024}}
• {{cite book |last1=Kansteiner |first1=Wulf |title=Is the Holocaust Unique? |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-49513-7 |chapter=The Rise and Fall of Metaphor: German Historians and the Uniqueness of the Holocaust |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/isholocaustuniqu00rose/page/220/mode/2up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Krondorfer |first1=Björn |title=HOLOCAUST MEMORY AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: Competition, Friction, and Convergences |journal=CrossCurrents |date=2021 |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=373–405 |doi=10.1353/cro.2021.0043 |jstor=27110621 |s2cid=247161771 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27110621 |issn=0011-1953 |quote=}}
• {{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=David B. |title=Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical Representation |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415543521 |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Moses |first1=A. Dirk |author-link=A. Dirk Moses |title=The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression |title-link=The Problems of Genocide |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-02832-5 |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Rosenbaum |first1=Alan S. |title=Is the Holocaust Unique? |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-49513-7 |chapter=Introduction to the Second Edition |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/isholocaustuniqu00rose/page/n23/mode/2up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}
• {{cite book |last1=Rosenfeld |first1=Gavriel D. |author1-link=Gavriel D. Rosenfeld |title=Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-07399-9 |language=en}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Stone |first1=Dan |title=The historiography of genocide: beyond 'uniqueness' and ethnic competition |journal=Rethinking History |date=2004 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=127–142 |doi=10.1080/13642520410001649769|s2cid=143125624 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Stone |first1=Dan |author1-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=Histories of the Holocaust |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-161420-0 |language=en}}

{{Military historiography}}

Uniqueness debate

Category:Eurocentrism

Category:Exceptionalism

Category:History of Zionism