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Home , Ernst Nolte, Yehuda Bauer

Chapter 3

THE ISSUE OF AS A UNIQUE EVENT

by Alan Rosenberg and Evelyn Silverman

The question of the "uniqueness" of the Holocaust If the Holocaust was a truly unique event, then it has itself become a unique question. When we approach lies beyond our comprehension. If it was not the Holocaust, we are at once confronted with a truly unique, then there is no unique lesson to be dilemma: if the Holocaust is the truly unique and learned from it. Viewed solely from the unprecedented historical event that it is often held to perspective of its uniqueness, the Holocaust must be, then it must exceed the possibility of human be considered either incomprehensible or trivial. comprehension, for it lies beyond the reach of our A contexualist analysis, on the other hand, finds customary historical and sociological means of inquiry that it was neither "extra historical" nor just and understanding. But if it is not a historically unique another atrocity. It is possible to view the event, if it is simply one more incident in the long Holocaust as unprecedented in many respects of man's inhumanity to man, there is no special and as an event of critical and transformational point in trying to understand it, no unique lesson to importance in the history of our world. Using be learned. states the problem from a this method, we can determine the ways in which somewhat different perspective: the uniqueness question both helps and hinders our quest for understanding of the Holocaust. If what happened to the Jews was unique, then it took place outside of history, it becomes a mysterious event, an upside-down miracle, so to speak, an event of religious significance in the sense that it is not man-made as that term is normally under­ stood. On the other hand, if it is not unique at all, then where are the parallels or the precedents?'

Of all the enigmas, paradoxes, and dilemmas facing Holocaust scholarship2 the "uniqueness question" is surely the most vexing and divisive; it is the one question most likely to evoke partisan debate and to generate emotional heat in discussion. 3 This is most recently evident in what has come to be called the "'s Debate" or, the Historikerstreit, a volatile

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 41 debate of German origin about which we will say more within any traditional and historical context, but even later. within itself?" 4 George Kren and Leon Rappo­ The prominence of the issue of uniqueness, port call the "uniqueness question" very important, for, however, has not often been dealt with systematically "depending upon how it is answered, the general in the literature. No previously published bibliography orientation of interpretive analysis will obviously vary on the "uniqueness question" exists, and although many a great deal." 5 And again, insistence upon its historical important writings on the Holocaust implicitly include uniqueness may, according to Yehuda Bauer, render the issue, relatively few writings in the vast Holocaust the Holocaust irrelevant except as a specifically Jewish literature address the question of uniqueness directly. tragedy. Here is the thrust of Bauer's argument: Thus the reader will find that the bibliography at the end of this introduction contains fewer annotations of If what happens to the Jews is unique, then articles that deal directly with the issue and many more by definition it doesn't concern us, beyond whose main focus is elsewhere and from which the our pity and commiseration for the victims. uniqueness issue has to be inferred. If the Holocaust is not a universal problem, In our own efforts at analysis of the issues then why should a public school system in underlying the "uniqueness question," we have been Philadelphia, New York or Timbuktu teach struck by the very oddity of the question itself, for it it? Well, the answer is that there is no is strange that there should be argument about it at all. uniqueness, not even of a unique event. What strikes us as peculiar about it is that the legitima­ Anything that happens once, can happen cy of the question as such is so taken for granted, so again: not quite in the same way, perhaps, readily is it assumed that the uniqueness of the Holo­ but in an equivalent form. 6 caust is not merely a fit subject for analysis but is a problem of the very first rank in importance. In what follows we shall be addressing the problems The anomaly here is just that the "uniqueness and issues that are raised by texts like these, texts cited question" itself is taken to be crucially relevant to an here simply as evidence that-for Holocaust stud­ understanding of the Holocaust although it is relevant ies-the "uniqueness question" is at once paramount to few-if any-other landmark events of history. One and problematic. finds little discussion, for example, of the "uniqueness" It is clear, moreover, that the "uniqueness ques­ of the Protestant Reformation or the Industrial Revolu­ tion" has become a matter of concern to the Jewish and tion. The atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasa­ Christian lay community as well as to professional ki-surely qualified as "unique" and "unprecedented" scholars in the field. One need only think of the public in terms of their implications for the future of human­ debate over the issues of the inclusion of the Holocaust kind-is simply not the subject of debate concerning in the social studies curriculum of the New York City its "uniqueness;" nor does it involve controversy and school system or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council serious divisions of opinion. If the "uniqueness" of such to see how sensitive the issue has become, especially events as these, events that have radically altered our within the Jewish community itself.7 We may ask if world, is not in question, why is it that the "uniqueness this special sensitivity is not itself an impediment to question" has assumed such prominence in the context more widespread dialogue, thus hampering the very of ? Why is the question itself so hotly cause of understanding that Jews support. For, as contested? Some authorities on the history of the Professor Is mar Schorsch states, the Jews' "obsession" Holocaust go so far as to claim that the stance that one with the uniqueness claim "impedes genuine dialogue, takes with respect to the "uniqueness question" deter­ because it introduces an extraneous contentious issue mines the way in which one relates the Holocaust to that alienates potential allies from among other victims the rest of , influencing every dimension of organized human depravity. Similarly, our fixation ofone's interpretation and evaluation of the event itself. on uniqueness has prevented us from reaching out by universalizing the lessons of the Holocaust. "8 Comparability or Uniqueness Three Principal Options According to Saul Friedlander, for example, before we can begin to analyze any number of the Considerations such as these clearly imply that, central issues surrounding the Holocaust we must first if we are to widen and deepen our understanding of deal with "a preliminary issue of crucial importance the Holocaust, we must deal with the claim of "unique­ for every aspect of the Holocaust: are we dealing with ness" by developing a strategy that will free us from a phenomenon comparable with some other historical the conceptual muddles that presently cloud the issue. event or are we facing something unique not only We must be clear as to the meaning of the claim itself

48 if we are to escape the mystification that frequently has first sketch some of the factors that have tended to surrounded it. 9 We appear to have three principal make the "uniqueness question" itself a part of the options: problem in understanding the Holocaust. Before we can see how it can be treated as part of the "solution," 1) We can dismiss the whole question of "unique­ so to speak, we must see why it has become "part of ness," on one of two grounds. Eberhard Jackel, for the problem." instance, suggests that the uniqueness issue adds little It seems to be beyond question that the peculiar of value to our understanding of the Holocaust. He role that the "uniqueness question" has come to play asserts the event's uniqueness but then states, "incident- in relation to the historical accounts and understanding 1y, the question of uniqueness is after all not all that of the Holocaust is largely due to the insistence of a decisive. Would it change anything, had the major part of the Jewish community that the Holocaust National-Socialist murder not been unique?" 10 On the must be viewed as unique. 11 It was a segment of the other hand, Schorsch, as mentioned above, recommends Jewish community, in fact, that devised and accepted dismissal of the issue on the grounds that it only serves the very label "Holocaust" in order to express the to add a politically divisive element to the discussion. uniqueness of the event, 12 literally defining it as such by the name that they gave it. 13 The process by means 2) We can attempt to account for why it is that the of which a series of historical incidents becomes known "uniqueness" claim has become integral to the discus­ as an "event" is well known, for it is only by gathering sion of the meaning of the Holocaust while it has been into meaningful clusters the apparently separate and treated as merely peripheral to the analysis of other unrelated facts of historical happenings that we are able historical events of major consequence. to form coherent concepts of what has happened in the past. 3) We can concentrate our analysis upon how the The naming of such a cluster is but one step in "uniqueness question" helps as well as hinders us in the process of self-understanding, and so it is easy to our quest to elucidate the meaning and significance of see why a segment of the Jewish community has come the Holocaust. to view the naming of the Holocaust as an attempt to capture and preserve the uniqueness of meaning that Though we are sympathetic with those who confine is implicit in the facts so named. As those facts became their strategy to the first option, we shall reject it as known in the aftermath of World War II they immedi­ unrealistic. For, while it is true-as Schorsch points ately gave rise to a numbing horror in which the human out-that the claim to uniqueness sometimes does pose mind seemed to be incapable of dealing with them, of a difficulty for those who would gain a better under­ grasping them in the normal fashion in which we deal standing of the Holocaust by comparing it with other with the factual materials of history. The awful depth cases of mass human destruction, it does not seem to and scope of these "incidents," of these particular us that we can evade the "uniqueness question" by historical facts, were of such horrible dimensions as simply disregarding it. The "uniqueness question" is to seem completely incomprehensible. It is from this much too central to the literature of the Holocaust to response, we be! ieve, that the claim to the "uniqueness" be ignored. The second option as listed above is of of the Holocaust was generated. 14 And it is in the decisive import, for it is always helpful to understand context of this response that the search for those what lies behind any particular perspective on an event, characteristics and traits that mark the Holocaust as and especially so when the range of perspectives on unique must be understood. For it is precisely this the event is so much a part of the event itself and gives search, and the various proposals that have issued from rise to so much controversy. We shall be exercising it, that is responsible for making the "uniqueness the third option, because it builds upon the sec­ question" a part of the event which the "Holocaust" ond-depending as it does upon clarification of the names: it has become part of the problem of the meaning of the claim of "uniqueness" with respect to understanding and comprehension of what happened. the Holocaust-although a full account of the matter The peculiar question of "uniqueness" may not have lies beyond the scope of this chapter. been an inevitable component of the problem, but it is clearly, at this point, an inescapable one. Explicating the Uniqueness Question Quite aside from the origins of the "uniqueness question" and its integration into the total problematic In the end we shall try to show why explicating of the literature of the Holocaust, at least three other the "uniqueness question" is the strategy that is most substantive problems concerning the characterization fruitful in understanding the Holocaust itself. However, of the Holocaust as "unique" can be readily stated, although we shall be adopting this third option, let us though they are not so readily solved. We must, first

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 49 of all, be clear about what we mean when we claim as other events, such as the atomic bombing of Japan, an event to be unique. Second, we must be clear as to can be classified as "unique." what element or elements of the event make it unique. Yet we find interpreters of the Holocaust seriously Finally, we must at least try to be clear about the divided over the preliminary question of uniqueness. implications of the decision to classify the Holocaust In the first instance, there are those who view the whole as unique and try to understand how that decision may issue of uniqueness as unimportant, for there is, as we affect our interpretation of the event itself. have seen, a trivial sense in which all historical events are unique. 18 They see the Holocaust as unique only What Constitutes Uniqueness? to the extent that every historical event is necessarily different from every other historical event; because Existing Holocaust scholarship, surprisingly, is "history never repeats itself," contrary to what has of little help in determining criteria for what constitutes sometimes been popularly believed, it follows that the "uniqueness" with respect to the Holocaust, or any "uniqueness" of the Holocaust is affirmed. But such other historical event, for that matter. Often terms other an affirmation is clearly a "trivialization" of the than "unique" are used throughout the literature, words "uniqueness question." such as "singularity" or "particularity" or "unprecen­ There is yet a second group that falls within the dented" and phrases like "without equal" or "epoch camp of the "trivialists." They are quite willing to see making." Sometimes these are all used interchangeably, the Holocaust as an event of major importance, but they synonymously, and other times each term seems to be nevertheless agree that the claim of uniqueness cannot selected to establish a particular focus or emphasis of be sustained in any non-trivial form. They argue that meaning for the concept of uniqueness. Should we too much has been made of what have been called the consult ordinary language, we gain even less help. The "exceptional" features of the Holocaust. , American College Dictionary gives three possible for example, has been interpreted to have reduced the defnitions of "unique": 1) "of which there is but one"; uniqueness of the Holocaust to the "technical process 2) "having no like or equal"; and 3) "rare and unusu­ of the gassing. "19 Without denying the existence of al." In such terms, every event can be called unique, unique features this group concentrates on showing that for no event of history is ever literally duplicated or the Holocaust grew from the events that led up to it. "happens" twice, or is exactly "like" any other event, In their view the Holocaust may simply be regarded or its "equal." Moreover, from the point of view of as just one more incident-albeit a flagrant one-of those who believe in the uniqueness of the Holocaust man's inhumanity to man, one more horrible atrocity it would seem to trivialize the importance of the in a century filled with them. They cite such precedents Holocaust to call it simply "rare" or "unusual." as the destruction of the Armenians by the Turks21> and In order to avoid such trivialization we must look the mass destructions of the , at the actual use of the claim itself; we must analyze drawing analogies between the atrocities of the Gulag the intentions of those who have insisted upon the Archipelago and Auschwitz, and even reaching back "uniqueness" of the Holocaust, and we must try to to the genocidal near-extermination of the American grasp the point of the claim. In this way, it seems to Indians for parallel cases. us, we can make sense of the question. It would seem Some of these critics grant that whatever unique­ that for many scholars the claim of "uniqueness" is ness the Holocaust may possess can only be seen within intended to set apart from other historical events just the context of . 21 But some Jewish that singular event that has the potential of transforming intellectuals, Jacob Neusner22 and Arnold Eisen,23 for a culture, or altering the course of history, in some example, go so far as to hold that even within the profound and decisive way. If the , context of Jewish history the Holocaust cannot be for example, is said to be a "unique event" in the viewed as unique. They contend that the Holocaust history of the West, it is because it is viewed in this should be understood as one event in a succession of transformational light; it changed our Western culture, events, one link in a long chain of events aimed at the altered its values, and so can be viewed as a cause of elimination of the Jews as a people commencing with a major "turning point in history. "15 Such a way of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.24 defining the "uniqueness" claim corresponds closely In sharp contrast to the "trivialists," those whom to the definition offered by Emil Fackenheim, for his we have called "absolutists" are certain that no other "epoch making event" 16 is just what is meant by event in history even remotely resembles the Holocaust terming an event as actually or potentially "transforma­ or furnishes a precedent for understanding it. Its tional" of the status quo ante, as radically altering the singularity is such that it exceeds the power of language course of history. 17 Given such a definition we can see to express; its meaning is such that it belongs to how it is possible to claim that the Holocaust, as well "another planet." It is incomprehensible, completely

50 GENOCIDE outside the normal dimensions of our terrestrial history, essays and books have not yet been translated from the beyond all historical explanation and appraisal. It is, German, consider many important issues of substance they say, not merely unique; it is, to use the Eckhardts' and method, including those of the role of the Third phrase, "uniquely unique. "25 Reich in German history, the place of in Menachem Rosensaft sums up this view succinctly: world politics, as well as issues of German national the "Holocaust stands alone in time as an aberration pride. All of these works deal on some level with just within history. "26 And writes that "the how and to what extent the Third Reich and the universe of concentration camps, by its design, lies Holocaust can be contextualized within German and outside if not beyond history. Its vocabulary belongs world history. But from our perspective it is important to it alone. "27 In Bauer's striking characterization, the to note that "of all the issues raised by the controversy, Holocaust is viewed by these writers as an "upside­ the singularity of Auschwitz is the most central and the down miracle. "28 These absolutists see the Holocaust most hotly debated. "29 as unique simply because it happened, and concerning It was Ernst Nolte's essay of 198630 together with their view nothing needs to be added. Jilrgen Habermas' 31 response that first triggered the ' Debate. Habermas was responding to some Contextualists historians,32 such as Ernst Nolte, Michael Sturmer and Andreas Hillgruber who he believed had used the Those reluctant to accept either the trivialist or contextualization of the Holocaust in such a way as the absolutist position may be termed "contextualists." either to completely eliminate or to relegate to insignifi­ Contextualists find that, although there may be distinct cance any of its unique aspects. Nolte, for example, features of the Holocaust that set it apart and that might takes the idea of contextualization to such an extreme remain of more importance than its similarities and and so relativizes the events of the Holocaust that he resemblances to other events, it is central to their thesis renders it a rather normal happening of our era, almost that the Holocaust always be examined within the to be expected when examined in the context of other context of history. Comparison, many state, does not historical events of our time, highly analogous in many preclude uniqueness. Often it is the very act of compar­ respects to the Russian Revolution and so not even ison, the examination of the Holocaust against the unique in the sense of being unprecendented. Peter Gay backdrop of history, that serves to highlight those has called Nolte's approach "comparative trivializa­ features that render the event unique, but only relatively tion"33 in which the unique qualities of the Holocaust so. Other turning points in history, other great crises, are reduced to features of insignificant implication. they suggest, contain elements both comparable with The uniqueness ofthe Nazi crimes, their compara­ and related to the Holocaust. bility to other atrocities, becomes a crucial question With this approach the Holocaust is neither" extra for German national identity and Germany's place in historical," in the sense claimed by the absolutists, nor world history. As Charles S. Maier has explained it: just another atrocity, as the trivialists maintain. This means that it is possible to view the Holocaust as If Auschwitz is admittedly dreadful, but unprecedented in many respects, that it is an event of dreadful as only one specimen of geno­ critical and transformational importance in the history cide ... then Germany can still aspire to of our world, and yet it is still an event that must be reclaim a national acceptance that no one addressed as a part of that history. It can and should denies to perpetrators of other massacres, be compared to other genocidal incidents, described such as Soviet Russia. But if the Final Solu­ and analyzed in language free from the "mystification" tion remains noncomparable ... the past may that only blocks our understanding, and made as never be "worked through," the future never accessible to explanation as possible. It should not be normalized, and German nationhood may assumed, on a priori grounds of its absolute "unique­ remain forever tainted, like some well forev­ ness," that what caused the Holocaust is forever beyond er poisoned. 34 the reach of the tools of historical analysis, or that the consequences cannot be explored by means of social Habermas and others consider that Nolte and the theory. conservative historians have used extreme historiciza­ tion or relativization of the Holocaust and presented The Historikerstreit it with apologist intent to help Germany "regain a sense Of the lost national identity. nJS Here we must note what has become known as Other positions regarding the uniqueness issue and the Historikerstreit [historians' debate]. In this debate, the contextualization or comparability of the Holocaust a group of reknowned German scholars, most of whose and the Third Reich emerged from Habermas' confron-

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 51 tation with those he called the "conservative histori­ destruction are the more decisively unique feature of ans. "36 For our purposes, the most important position the event. 45 is that contextualization or the comparative method need Yet other contextualists unite both the intentionalist not eliminate the unique elements of the Holocaust but and the methodological apprehension of the Holocaust's could highlight both its singularity and its similarity uniqueness. It is not necessary after all that only one to other events. 37 The scope of this essay precludes distincttype of feature render an event unique. Jackel, further exploration of this important and fascinating for example, holds the Holocaust to be unique in both debate. 38 What is significant to us here is that once method and intention: again this debate puts the question of uniqueness into the forefront of our understanding of the Holocaust. This is not the first time I argue that the murder of the Jews was unique because Intention Versus Methodology never before had a state, with authority of its responsible leader, conceived and an­ It would be misleading to claim that, quite aside nounced its intention to liquidate as com­ from the historians of the Historikerstreit, all those pletely as possible a certain group of peo­ scholars we categorize as contextualists speak with a ple ... and to implement its decision by means single voice concerning the "uniqueness question." of all the official instruments of power at its Steven Katz39 and Saul Friedlander, 40 for instance, take disposal. 46 an "intentionalist" approach. They hold the view that it is the "intention" of the Nazis to eliminate Jewry These very sharply defined differences of focus totally that marks the Holocaust as unique among on what constitutes the uniqueness of the Holocaust are comparable pogroms and . Others, such as responsible for serious divergences of interpretation Richard L. Rubenstein41 and ,42 take of the event itself. For it is clear that the absolutists, a more "methodological" point of view. They see the trivialists, and contextualists employ their respective uniqueness of the Holocaust more in terms of the views of the "uniqueness question" as interpretive distinctive bureaucratic and technological methods of frameworks for understanding the Holocaust itself. The destruction employed. The impact of each position can preliminary question of uniqueness helps to determine, be seen by comparing the following texts. In "Whose by the way in which it is answered, the conceptual Holocaust?" Yehuda Bauer takes the intentionalist apparatus for exploring the other problems of the approach: Holocaust.

The uniqueness of the Holocaust does Interpretive Grids not .. .lie in numbers. It does not lie in the method of mass murder .... What makes it With these very different approaches to the unique is the existence of two elements: Holocaust locked into the different interpretive grids planned total annihilation of a national or through which the event itself is to be viewed and ethnic group, and the quasi-religious, apoca­ interpreted, from the preliminary stage on, it is small lyptic ideology that motivated the murder. 43 wonder that the eventual interpretations that are reached should themselves be widely variant, and we can see By contrast, here is Robert E. Willis representing the how each interpretation of the uniqueness question will approach from the methodologist standpoint: have very different implications. The absolutist posi­ tion, while it forces us to see the uniqueness of the For whatever similarities are present between event, renders the Holocaust forever incomprehensible, Auschwitz and other cases-and there are outside the context of our age, our language, and our many-the former is distinguished by being capacity for understanding. 47 While many absolutists the first instance of a situation in which the urge that discussion of the Holocaust be continued, as full bureaucratic and technical apparatus of Bauer asks, if the Holocaust has no universal lessons the state was mobilized for the primary for all men, why should anyone study it?48 One might purpose of extermination. 44 question the value of including an incomprehensible event in a school curricula, for example. Some methodologists make it clear that they fully When the trivialist position is taken, attention is recognize the important role that the intentionalists drawn away from any unique features the Holocaust ascribe to the "uniqueness" of the Nazis' emphasis on might have. Unlike the absolutist view, the Holocaust "total extermination," while insisting that the special is placed within the context of history, but the event bureaucratic and technological means employed in that becomes of no more concern to us than any other

52 GENOCIDE historical event. All transformational potential is denied NOTES and no particular lessons can be derived from it. Contextualists, as we have said, place the Holo­ 1. Y ehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in Historical caust as a historical event, neither necessarily beyond Perspective (Seattle: University of Washington, 1978), our comprehension nor beyond the reach of our 31. For different formulations of this problem, see Emil customary tools of social analysis. Their use of context­ Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of ualization can serve either to highlight or to minimize Future Jewish Thought (New York: Schocken Books, any possibly unique features with strikingly different 1982), 20; Henry L. Feingold, "How Unique Is the consequences. As we have seen the contextualization Holocaust?" in Critical Issues of the Holocaust, ed. of the Holocaust can lead either to trivialization or to by Alex Grohman and Daniel Landes (Los Angeles: expansion of our understanding of the causes of events Center and Rossel Books, 1983), like the Holocaust. Such expanded understanding may 397; and Robert McAfee Brown, "The Holocaust as give us the knowledge that will enable us prevent any a Problem in Moral Choice," in When God and Man possible recurrence. Failed: Non-Jewish Views of the Holocaust, ed. by Within the contextualistdebate two major empha­ Harry James Cargas (New York: Macmillan Publishing ses emerge with differing implications. The methodolo­ Co., Inc., 1981), 99. gists, placing the focus as they do on the technological and bureaucratic means of destruction, tend to down­ 2. For a more detailed analysis of the enigmas and play the importance of the victims of the Holocaust. paradoxes facing Holocaust scholarship, see Alan On the other hand the intentionalist position places all Rosenberg, "The Problematic Character of Understand­ focus of emphasis on the Jews as victims. This empha­ ing the Holocaust," European Judaism 17:2 (Winter sis on the particularity of the Jewish situation tends to 1983/84): 16-20; and Alan Rosenberg, "The Crisis in obscure relevant analogies with the predicaments of Knowing and Understanding the Holocaust," in Echoes other groups and also obscures the more universal from the Holocaust: Philosophical Reflections on a implications for the future of all humankind. When Dark Time, ed. by Alan Rosenberg and Gerald Myers speaking of the Jews' special claim to uniqueness, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), Geoff Eley has stated: " ... to insist on the uniqueness 379-395. of the event is a short step to insisting on the exclusive­ ness of interpretation which asserts an empathetic 3. See Pierre Papazian, "A 'Unique Uniqueness'?" privilege and even Jewish proprietorship in the sub­ and the symposium it generated, "Was the Holocaust ject. "49 As we have noted earlier one possible result Unique?: Responses to Pierre Papazian," Midstream of this approach is to yield political disharmonies with 30:4 (April 1984): 14-25. other groups who have felt themselves to have been similarly victimized in other catastrophes and who 4. Saul Friedlander, "On the Possibility of the might feel that the insistence on Jewish uniqueness Holocaust: An Approach to a Historical Synthesis," serves to underplay their own experiences. 50 in The Holocaust as Historical Experience, ed. by Yehuda Bauer and Nathan Rotenstreich (New York: Conclusion Holmes and Meier, 1981 ), 1.

What is important is not that the reader should 5. George Kren and Leon Rappoport, "Failure of accept any one approach to the "uniqueness question" Thought in Holocaust Interpretation," in Towards the as true and the others as false, but that he or she should Holocaust: The Social and Economic Collapse of the try to discover which of these approaches yields the , ed. by Michael N. Dobkowski and most coherent and intelligible results, which framework Isidor Wallimann (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, elucidates the problems ofunderstandingthe Holocaust 1983), 380. most clearly and is the most promising for understand­ ing its historical and moral significance. It is not a 6. Yehuda Bauer, "Right and Wrong Teaching of simple matter to decide, and the fact that there are the Holocaust," in The International Conference on subtle differences within each type of approach does Lessons of the Holocaust, ed. by Josephine Z. Knopp not make the task any easier. (Philadelphia: National Institute on the Holocaust, 1979), 5.

7. See Ismar Schorsch, "The Holocaust and Jewish Survival," Midstream 17:1 (January 1981): 39; and Paula E. Hyman, "New Debates on the Holocaust,"

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 53 The New York Times Magazine (14 September 1980): Roy Eckhardt, "The Holocaust and the Enigma of 80-82. Uniqueness: A Philosophical Effort at Practical Clarifi­ cation," The Annals of the American Academy of 8. Schorsch, 39. Political and Social Science 450 (July 1980): 166-167.

9. For the significances of the issue, see Henry 19. Ernst Nolte, "A Past That Will Not Pass Away Friedlander, "Toward a Methodology of Teaching about (A Speech It Was Possible to Write, But Not to the Holocaust," Teacher's CollegeRecord80:3 (Febru­ Present)," Studies 19 (1988): 71. ary 1979): 524-525 and Rosenberg, "The Crisis in Knowing and Understanding the Holocaust," 389-392. 20. See Papazian, 14.

10. Eberhard Jackel, "The Miserable Practice of the 21. Papazian, 14. Insinuators: The Uniqueness of the National-Socialist Crime Cannot Be Denied," Yad Vashem Studies 19 22. Jacob Neusner, Stranger at Home: "The Holo­ (1988): 111. caust," and American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 6-8. 11. Schorsch, 39. 23. Eisen's remarks appear in "The Meaning and 12. Lucy S. Dawidowicz states, "The Holocaust is Demeaning of the Holocaust: A Symposium," Moment the term that Jews themselves have chosen to describe 6:3-4 (March/April 1981): 3. their fate during World War II ." The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and 24. For a good brief critical discussion see Holocaust: Winston, 1975), xv. Religious and Philosophical Implications, ed. by John K. Roth and Michael Berenbaum (New York: Paragon 13. For a brilliant historical analysis of how the term House, 1989), 3-5. "Holocaust" became the name for what happened to the Jews under Hitler, see Gerd Korman, "The Holo­ 25. A. Roy Eckhardt with Alice L Eckhardt, Long caust in American Historical Writing," Societas 2:3 Night's Journey into Day: Life and Faith after the (Summer 1972): 259-262. Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 43-50. 14. Rosenberg, "The Crisis in Knowing and Under­ standing the Holocaust," 386. 26. Menachem Rosensaft, "The Holocaust: History as Aberration," Midstream 23:5 (May 1977): 55. 15. On the question of transformational events, see George M. Kren and Leon Rappoport, The Holocaust 27. Elie Wiesel, "Now We Know," in Genocide in andthe CrisisofHumanBehavior(New York: Holmes Paraguay, ed. by Richard Arens (Philadelphia: Temple and Meier, 1980), 12-15; and Alan Rosenberg and University Press, 1976), 165. Alexander Bardosh's critique of the same in Modern Judaism 1:3 (December 1981): 337-346. 28. Yehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in Historical Perspective (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 16. Emil Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History 1978), 31. (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 279. 29. Richard J. Evans, "The New and the 17. For an analysis of what has been radically altered Old History: Perspectives on the West German His­ in history by the Holocaust, see Kren and Rappoport, torikerstreit," Journal of Modern History (December 131-143; and Alan Rosenberg, "The Philosophical 1987): 781. Implications of the Holocaust," in Perspectives on the Holocaust, ed. by Randolph L. Braham (Boston: 30. Nolte, 65-73. Kluever-Nijhoff Publishers, 1983), 8-16. 31 . Jiirgen Habermas, "A Kind of Indemnification: 18. For an incisive analysis of the problem, see Carey The Tendencies toward Apologia in German Research B. Joynt and Nicholas Rescher, "The Problem of on Current History," Yad Vashem Studies 19 (1988): Uniqueness in History," in Studies in the 75-92. of History, ed. by George H. Nadel (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 3-15; and Alice L. Eckhardt and A.

54 GENOCIDE 32. For an excellent understanding of Habermas' 40. Friedlander, 1-6. intervention in the German Debate, see John Torpey, "Introduction: Habermas and the Historians," New 41 . Richard L. Rubenstein, The Cunning of History German Critique no. 44 (Spring/Summer 1988): 5-24. (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 6-7, 22-35.

33. Peter Gay, Freud, Jews and Other Germans (New 42. Henry Friedlander, "Toward a Methodology of York: Oxford University Press, 1978), xi. Teaching about the Holocaust," 530-531.

34. Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: 43 . Yehuda Bauer, "Whose Holocaust?" Midstream History, Holocaust, and German National Identity 26:9 (November 1980): 45. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 1. 44. Robert E. Willis, "Confessing God after Ausch­ witz: A Challenge for Christianity," Cross Currents 35. , "Singularity and Its Relativiza­ 28:3 (Fall 1978): 272. tion: Changing Views in German on National Socialism and the ''," Yad 45 . See Leo Kuper, Genocide (New Haven: Yale Vashem Studies 19 (1988): 163. University Press, 1981), 120-122, 135.

36. See and Saul Friedlander, "A 46. Jackel, 110. Controversy about the Historicization of National Socialism," Yad Vashem Studies 19 (1988): 1-47. 47. For an excellent analysis of the problem of incomprehensibility, see Dan Magurshak, "The Incom­ 37. For an excellent discussion of this position see prehensibility of the Holocaust: Tightening Up Some Jurgen Kocka, "The Weight of the Past in Germany's Loose Usage," in Echoes from the Holocaust: Philo­ Future," German Politics and Society (February 1988): sophical Reflections on a Dark Time, ed. by Alan 22-29. Rosenberg and Gerald Myers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 421-431. 38. For further reading see Richard J. Evans, In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the 48. Bauer, "Right and Wrong Teaching of the Holo­ Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: caust," 5. Pantheon Books, 1989); and , The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives ofInterpreta­ 49. Geoff Eley," Holocaust History," London Review tion, 2d ed . (London and New York: Edward Arnold, of Books (3-17 March 1982): 6. 1989), 150-191. 50. Papazian, 18. 39. Steven T. Katz, "The 'Unique' Intentionality of the Holocaust," ModernJudaism 1:2(September1981): 161-183.

Chapter 3: Annotated Bibliography • 3.1 • • 3.2 • Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in . Rev. & enl. Bauer, Yehuda. "Against Mystification." In The ed . New York: Viking Press, 1964. LC 64-25532. Holocaust in Historical Perspective. Seattle: University In the epilogue of her well known book, Arendt of Washington Press, 1978. LC 78-2988. ISBN 0-295- concludes that the Nazi crimes were unique "politically 95606-2. and legally." She says, " ... these 'crimes' were different Bauer confronts the dilemma of conceptualizing not only in degree of seriousness but in essence." She the Holocaust as unique: if totally unique, it lies outside sees the key difference to lie in the Nazi intention to historical understanding; if not at all unique, then murder all Jews worldwide, thus creating a new kind "where are the parallels and precedents?" He places of crime that she calls a "crime against humanity." the Holocaust within the context of history as "parallel" to other acts of genocide, but claims that the Nazis' wish to murder all Jews simply by virtue of the fact that they were Jews and not for any secondary gain,

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 55 whether political or economic, sets the Holocaust apart fact that it is the only event in history to date where as a unique event. In this way Bauer establishes what the annhilation was intended on a global scale. we call the intentionalist approach to the uniqueness issue. He takes issue with using the term genocide to • 3.5 • apply to the Holocaust because, according to Bauer, Bauer, Yehuda. "The Place of the Holocaust in Con­ Lemkin, the jurist who first coined the word, never temporary History." In Studies in Contemporary Jewry. understood the term "genocide" to apply to the com­ Ed. by Jonathan Frankel. Bloomington: Indiana plete physical annihilation of an entire group-a fate University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-253-39511-9. the Nazis clearly intended for the Jews-but only to In this later article Bauer reinforces his idea that the destruction of a group's national or ethnic or genocide and holocaust are two distinct kinds of events, religious identity, its "murderous denationalization." locatable on a continuum of evil that stretches from Thus the Holocaust can be seen as comparable to other "mass murder" to "genocide" to "holocaust." Genocide genocidal events-the Armenian massacre, for in­ involves the destruction of a group's national, ethnic, stance-but unique in and of itself because of the or religious identity and might involve mass murder. unique intention involved: according to Bauer, the A holocaust, Bauer notes, using a lower case "h" to Turks never intended to murder all the Armenians. denote a generic class of events and not the Jewish Holocaust, involves the total physical annihilation of • 3.3 • a group, the murder of all its members for ideological Bauer, Yehuda. "Essay: On the Place of the Holocaust reasons. To Bauer the Holocaust-the destruction of in History; In Honour of Franklin H. Littell." Holo­ the European Jews-is a unique form of holocaust caust and Genocide Studies 20:2 (1987): 209-220. because it is the only one that fulfilled the criteria in Bauer reiterates his position that it is the motiva­ the extreme form. The Armenian massacre, about tion of the Nazis that sets the Holocaust off as a unique which Bauer now states that the Turks did in fact intend event in history and apart from other mass destructions to totally annihilate all Armenians in Turkey, offers and genocides. Unlike his position in earlier writings, an analogous but not identical kind of event because however, Bauer now characterizes the Nazis' motiva­ there were ideological differences. "On the continuum tion, their desire to murder the Jews, as "a global the two events stand next to each other." Thus Bauer ideology, not just a Germanic one" that involved appears to be saying that the Armenian massacre fits ridding the entire world of all Jews. According to into the general category of holocaust. Bauer, the closest parallel in history to date is the Armenian massacre, which he calls a "Holocaust-related • 3.6. event." In that case, however, the motivation was Bauer, Yehuda. "Whose Holocaust?" Midstream 26:9 primarily political; and perhaps just as importantly to (November 1980): 42-46. Bauer, at no point did the Turks express the desire to Bauer again deals with the uniqueness issue; this murder all Armenians worldwide but only within time he sets his discussion in a warning that de-Jud­ Turkey's political boundaries. These differences, crucial aizing the Holocaust by denying its uniqueness can to Bauer, still set the Holocaust apart as a unique possibly be one of the first steps in allowing the rebirth historical event. of a more rampant anti-semition. He argues that the memory of the outrageous horror of the Holocaust has • 3.4. inhibited this potential rebirth. As in previous writings, Bauer, Yehuda. "Is the Holocaust Explicable." In he again states that the Holocaust is unique in intention Remembering for the Future: Working Papers and in that the Nazis wanted to totally annihilate the Jews. Addenda. Vol. 2. Ed. byYehudaBauer, etal. Oxford: He still distinguishes between genocide and the Holo­ Pergamon Press, 1989. ISBN 0-08-036754-2 . caust, but now introduces the idea that the "Holocaust Bauer, in a paper presented at a world conference is both the name for a specific, unique event in recent entitled "Remembering for the Future," again asserts history, and also a generic concept: The planned total that the Jewish Holocaust is a unique, unprecedented annihilation of a national or ethnic group on the basis event in history. Bauer defines "Holocaust" generically of general ideology." This differs from genocide in that as the "planned, total annihilation of a whole peo­ a genocide would not necessarily involve the murder ple ... for ideological reasons." For Bauer, "the cases of a people but possibly only the destruction of a of the Armenians and the Jews would fit here, with the people's identity. Bauer has here included in his ideological factor being decisive in the case of the Jews, definition of the Holocaust the concept that a holocaust thus setting this Holocaust apart." Whereas the annihila­ must not only be a "planned total annihilation" but that tion of the Armenians was limited to Turkey, the it must be powered by "ideological reasons." uniqueness of the Jewish destruction stems from the

56 GENOCIDE • 3.7 • . For a similar presentation with discus­ Berenbaum, Michael. "The Uniqueness and Universali­ sion, see Dawidowicz, Lucy." The Holocaust was ty of the Holocaust." American Journal of Theology Unique in Intent, Scope, and Effect." Center Magazine and Philosophy 2:3 (1981): 85-96. 14:4 (July/August 1981): 56-64. Berenbaum asserts that the Holocaust is analogous, though not equivalent, to other events in history, and • 3.10. that the comparison of the Holocaust to those other Deutscher, Isaac. "The Jewish Tragedy and the Histori­ historical events does not necessarily detract from its an." In The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays. London: uniqueness, but rather serves to highlight those ele­ Oxford University Press, 1968. LC 68-57295. ments unique to it. The Holocaust remains unprecedent­ In a brief essay, Deutscher, an eminent Marxist ed in both world and Jewish history for four reasons: historian, discusses the relationship of the historian to 1) it was biologically based; 2) it was a sustained the study of the Holocaust. He concludes that the episode of anti-semition; 3) it was legally sanctioned Holocaust, as an event in which every Jewish person by the State; and 4) the intention of the Nazis was to was to be murdered, is and will remain absolutely annihilate all Jews. unique and beyond comprehension to the historian .

• 3.8 • • 3.11. Dadrian, V ahakn N. "The Convergent Aspects of the Eckhardt, A. Roy. "Is the Holocaust Unique?" World­ Armenian and Jewish Cases of Genocide: A Reinterpre­ view 17:9 (September 1974): 31-35. tation of the Concept of Holocaust." Holocaust and Eckhardt postulates a continuum of universality Genocide Studies 3:2 (1988): 152-169. and particularity of events. All historical events are Dadrian claims that both the Armenians and the unique and to deny this is to gloss over real differences. Jews have had similar destructions visited on them. The Some events, however, are so unique as to be on a Armenian massacre and the annihilation of the Jews "level of incomparability (e.g., God, the Jewish people, were both genocides carried out with similar method the Devil.. .. )" It is in this classification that Eckhardt and intention. But although perhaps not objectively places the Holocaust. He believes it is so different from unique, each destruction is subjectively unique as it is other historical events that it is discontinuous with experienced by its victims. This subjective experience them, or "uniquely unique." of uniqueness holds for all groups towards whom genocide has been directed. • 3.12 • Eckhardt, A. Roy, and Alice L. Eckhardt. "The Holo­ • 3.9. caust and the Enigma of Uniqueness: A Philosophical Dawidowicz, Lucy. "Thinking about the Six Million: Effort at Practical Clarification." Annals ofthe Ameri­ Facts, Figures, Perspectives." In The Holocaust and can Academy of Political and Social Science 450 (July the Historians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 1980): 165-178. Press, 1981. LC 80-29175. ISBN 0-674-40566-8. The Eckhardts seek to analyze the Holocaust in In the context of a review of the total loss of such a way as to avoid mystifying the event-making human life during World War II, Dawidowicz argues it incomprehensible-and yet to preserve its singularity. that the fate of the Jews was essentially different from To accomplish this, they set out three major categories other mass murders perpetrated by the Nazis. The of uniqueness. The first is the category of "ordinary author states that "never before had the principles and uniqueness," a category into which all events fall, for methods of rational organization been employed ... for all historical events are qualitatively different from one purposes of mass murder," thus implying that this another. The second is the category of "unique unique­ aspect of the Holocaust is unprecedented. But for ness," a category into which "epoch making events" Dawidowicz, the Holocaust stands as a unique event can be placed, events of such "singular importance" in two other major respects. First is the Nazi intention that they transform history. The third category, that to annihilate all Jews, and second is the unique effect of "transcending uniqueness," includes" events that are on Jewish history of having such a great proportion held to be essentially different from not only ordinary of its people murdered in so short a time. Although uniqueness but even unique uniqueness." Events in this the overall effect of this proportion of victims is yet category have the quality of absolute incomparability. to be evaluated, the one point about which Dawidowicz The fields of science and history approach events from is emphatic is that the continuity of Ashkenazic Jewish the stances of the first two categories, whereas the third culture has been destroyed irrevocably. The danger of category can only be understood by the experience of universalizing the Holocaust, to Dawidowicz, is that the beholder, involving a "radical leap from objectness it can be seen to mitigate the moral responsibility of to subjectness." The Eckhardts advise us that the

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 51 Holocaust must be approached from all three stances inadequacy." He also asserts that comparisons to other in order to avoid falsification of the event. somewhat similar events that have occurred, such as Hiroshima, not only serve to trivialize the Holocaust • 3.13 • but also evade its essential uniqueness . Eckhardt, A. Roy, with Alice L. Eckhardt. Long Night's Journey into Day. Detroit: Wayne State • 3.16 • University Press, 1982. LC 81-14788. ISBN 0-8143- Fackenheim, Emil. "The Holocaust and Philosophy." 1692-1. The Journal of Philosophy 82: 10 (October 1985): In a book that deals with the effect of the Holo­ 505-514. caust on contemporary Jews and Christians, the Fackenheim categorizes the Holocaust as a unique Eckhardts devote a chapter to the central issue of the event, a "novum in the history of evil," and still asserts event's uniqueness. Again they maintain that a satisfac­ the importance of recognizing its uniqueness. The tory analysis of the Holocaust must dialectically include Armenian massacre, Fackenheim states, was a case of both the singularity and the universality of the event. genocide, an attempt to murder a whole people. But Once again calling the Holocaust "uniquely unique," Fackenheim finds important differences between that referring to it as "metanoia, a climactic turning around genocide and the Holocaust and concludes that "the of the world," they explain how it is also useful to both Holocaust, then, is but one case of the class 'genocide.' examine those elements that imbue the Holocaust with As a case of the class: 'intended, planned, and largely this quality of uniqueness as well as to see the ways successful extermination,' it is without precedent and, in which it fits into historical context, that is, to see thus far at least, without sequel." For a response to how "the Holocaust manifests discontinuity as well as Fackenheim's position taken in this article see Berel continuity with the past." Lang, "Uniqueness and Explanation" Journal of Philosophy 82: 10 (October 1985): 514-515 . • 3.14. Fackenheim, Emil. "Concerning Authentic and Unau­ • 3.17. thentic Responses to the Holocaust." Holocaust and Fackenheim, Emil. To Mend the World: Foundations Genocide Studies 1: 1 (1986): 101-120. ofFuture Jewish Thought. New York: Schocken Books, In this article, Fackenheim states that it is not 1982. LC 81-16614. ISBN 0-8052-3795-X. useful to define the Holocaust in terms of the unique Fackenheim here says that the Holocaust is a and the universal, but rather in terms of authentic and unique event for both Jewish and world history because unauthentic responses. Unauthenticity must follow if it presents a constellation of features not applicable to the Holocaust is seen as either solely unique or univer­ any other historical event. These features involve the sal, for calling the Holocaust unique cuts it off from fact that a large percentage of the total Jewish popula­ other historical events, and treating it universally tion was murdered; that the Nazis intended that no Jews unduly dilutes its significance. According to Facken­ survive; that being ofJewish birth constituted sufficient heim, the unique and the universal can be united reason to be put to death; that although the Holocaust through the medium of history if the Holocaust is involved extensive physical brutality and murder the considered as a historical event that is a "transmutation majority of the perpetrators were not sadists but of history." "ordinary job holders with an extraordinary job"; and that the extermination of the Jewish people was an end • 3.15. in itself-no other "pragmatic" purpose for their death Fackenheim, Emil. From Bergen-Be/sen to Jerusalem: presented itself. Fackenheim recognizes that other Contemporary Implications ofthe Holocaust. Jerusalem: catastrophic events have their own unique characteris­ Cultural Department, World Jewish Congress, and tics and must be understood in their own uniqueness. Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University, 1975. LC 78-311780. • 3.18 • In this earlier discussion of the Holocaust, Facken­ Feingold, Henry L. "Determining the Uniqueness of heim strongly stresses the need to recognize the the Holocaust: The Factor of Historical Valence." uniqueness of the Holocaust. Although he asserts that Shoah 2:2 (Spring 1981): 3-11. we must see the Holocaust as an event that occurred Feingold reviews the positions of the universalists within the context of history and that we must try to who place the Holocaust within the context of history explain the conditions that existed that could allow the on a continuum with other genocidal acts, and the Holocaust to happen, scholars must acknowledge that particularists who insist on the Holocaust's essential "each and every explanation is false, if not downright uniqueness. With careful consideration of the events, obscene, unless it is accompanied by a sense of utter Feingold arrives at the idea that the meaning of the

58 GENOCIDE Holocaust, a meaning with which we are still strug­ Working Papers and Addenda. Vol. 2. Ed. by Yehuda gling, lies more in the ways in which it differs from Bauer, et al. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989. ISBN 0- other genocides and not in the ways it is similar. Those 08-036754-2. key differences lie in the methodology employed in the Fox states that to gain insight into the significance execution of the Nazis' plan to exterminate the Jews of the Holocaust for humankind, we must abandon "the and, novel to Feingold, in the fact that in destroying bitter and often pointless debate about whether, for a such a large portion of the Jewish population it de­ number of reasons, the Holocaust should be considered stroyed a people whose contributions had a major a totally 'unique' or 'mystical' event in the whole of impact on Western culture, thus transforming the future human history." He feels a more correct approach must development of Western civilization. This impact, include the study of those constant conditions of according to Feingold, will not be equally felt with the humankind and society that facilitated an event like the destruction of those other groups, such as the Armeni­ Holocaust. It is within this context that Fox claims that ans or the Gypsies, whose thinkers did not play as "what made the Holocaust 'unique'" was the conjunc­ significant a role in the development of European tion of both the presence and leadership of culture. with "all the psychological and social features of 'man in society' .... " • 3.19 • Feingold, Henry L. "How Unique Is the Holocaust?" • 3.22. In Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust. Ed. by Freeman, Michael. "Genocide and Social Science." Alex Grohman and Daniel Landes. Los Angeles: Simon Patterns of Prejudice 20:4 (1986): 3-15. Wiesenthal Center and Chappaqua, NY: Rossell Books, From the point of view of the social sciences, 1983. LC 83-3052. ISBN 0-940646-04-8. Freeman finds that "the debate between uniqueness and Feingold asserts the uniqueness of the Holocaust comparison [of the Holocaust] may be misleading by and warns against trivializing the event by using it as presenting us with a false choice." Some argue that a metaphor for all cases of oppression. He again emphasizing the differences between the Holocaust and stresses the idea that the Holocaust was unique in that other genocidal events betters further understanding; it destroyed the Jews, a unique people, who produced others consider that a comparative emphasis better a great many significant thinkers without whom achieves this same end. Freeman believes that both European society would not be the same. He also approaches may be useful in understanding any case characterizes the Holocaust's uniqueness as resting on of genocide, including the Holocaust. a few essential characteristics: in its radical evil, in its scale, and more importantly in that it was the first time • 3.23. that the modern Western industrial system-a system Friedlander, Henry. "Toward a Methodology of intended to improve the quality of human life-was Teaching about the Holocaust." Teachers College systematically used for the destruction of life. Record 80:3 (February 1979): 519-542. Recognizing that the Holocaust is increasingly • 3.20. being taught in American schools and colleges, Fried­ Feuer, Lewis S. "The Reasoning of Holocaust Theol­ lander offers a rationale with which to approach the ogy." This Worldno.14(Spring/Summer1986): 70-82. topic. In the course of his discussion he highlights the Feuer, a well known , rejects the idea obvious importance of the issue of uniqueness in that it is useful to call the Holocaust unique. A unique teaching about the Holocaust. Only if comparisons to event, he reasons, is one that can never happen again, other historical events can be made can we rightly and "that is of necessity a class with one member." And productive! y integrate the subject into a school curricu­ yet a major, and to Feuer appropriate, concern about lum. Friedlander warns that those who would make the Holocaust is that we understand it in such a way the uniqueness of the Holocaust into "sacred history" that we can ensure that a similar event will not happen stifle serious historical discussion. Friedlander also again. If it were truly unique, as uniqueness is defined discounts the concept that a unique aspect of the above, then our efforts to prevent recurrence are Holocaust includes the intention of the Nazis to annihi­ pointless: by definition this could not happen. Therefore late the Jews and instead focuses on the methodology Feuer suggests that it is more useful to understand the employed as its outstandingly unique feature, saying Holocaust as being unprecedented and not unique. that " ... in technological efficiency it was sui gene­ ris .... II • 3.21 • Fox, John P. "The Holocaust: A 'Non-Unique' Event for All Humanity?" In Remembering for the Future:

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 59 * 3.24 * * 3.27 * Friedlander, Saul. "On the Possibility of the Holocaust: Goldberg, Hillel. ": The Survivors An Approach to a Historical Synthesis." In The Statement-Part I." Tradition 20:2 (Summer 1982): Holocaust as Historical Experience. Ed. by Yehuda 141-154. Bauer and Nathan Rotenstreich. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981. LC 80-23136. ISBN 0-8419-0635-1. Goldberg, Hillel. "Holocaust Theology: The Survivors Friedlander attempts to determine why, although Statement-Part II." Tradition 20:4 (Winter 1982): three decades have passed, our historical understanding 341-357. of the Holocaust is no better now than just following Goldberg, who approaches the Holocaust from the war. One of the first topics he discusses is the issue the Orthodox Jewish point of view, asserts that the of the Holocaust's uniqueness. He claims that the Holocaust only seems unique, for every major Jewish Holocaust was unique both inside Nazism and without. catastrophe appears so for the people who live through Inside Nazism it was unique because the Jews were the the experience. "The Holocaust survivors remind us only group the Nazis intended to annihilate totally and of the Jewish ability to respond to watershed disasters, they were the only group identified with absolute evil. each seen as unique in its own time." But this unique­ In world history, Friedlander finds that "although there ness should not be seen as a reason to assume its are precedents for an attempt at total physical eradica­ incomprehensibility for all time with regards to Jewish tion, the Nazi exterminatory drive was made unmistak­ theology. A new theology not yet developed, Goldberg ably unique by its motivation." Although the uniqueness claims, is as necessary for an adequate response to the of the Holocaust denies our ability to use "explanatory Holocaust as it was for other previous Jewish catastro­ categories of a generalizing kind," it should not prevent phes, but those who choose to present the Holocaust us from trying to identify and explain the historical as an event qualitatively different from other catastroph­ trends that led up to the Holocaust. ic events in Jewish history encourage silence and not speech on the issue and would prevent a new theology * 3.25 * from developing. Frey, Robert S. "Issues in Post-Holocaust Christian Theology." Dialog: A Journal of Theology (Summer * 3.28 * 1983): 227-235. Habermas, Jiirgen. The New Conservatism: Cultural Frey asserts that the Holocaust is a significant Criticism and the Historians ' Debate. Ed. and trans. event for Christian theology and as such must be the by Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA: MIT concern of all denominations. In introducing his Press, 1989. ISBN 0-262-08188-1. discussion, he tries to establish a rationale for determin­ Throughout two sections of his book Habermas, ing the Holocaust's significance and in this context whose response to Nolte first triggered the German confronts the uniqueness issue. To him the Holocaust's Debate, repeatedly criticizes those historians who would uniqueness lies in the methodology of the event-the use the relativization of the Holocaust to deny its fact of a mass murder being carried out by a "state uniqueness. Their denial, he states, is put forth for sponsored, technologically sophisticated system," in apologetic reasons, in order to relieve Germans of the a thoroughly rational manner-as well as being reflected moral responsibility of the Nazi crimes of the past. in a more intentionalist position that recognizes the Nazi Habermas believes that Auschwitz was an epoch-making attempt to murder all Jews by virtue of their being event in that it "altered the conditions for the continua­ Jewish. tion of historical life contexts-and not only in Germa­ ny." * 3.26 * Friedman, Philip. '"Righteous Gentiles' in the Nazi * 3.29 * Era." In Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust. Hancock, Ian. "Uniqueness, Gypsies and Jews." In Ed. by Ada June Friedman. New York: Jewish Publica­ Remembering for the Future: Working Papers and tion Society and the Conference on Jewish Social Addenda. Vol. 2. Ed. by Yehuda Bauer, et al. Oxford: Studies, 1980. LC 79-89818. ISBN 0-8276-0170-0. Pergamon Press, 1989. ISBN 0-08-036754-2. Friedman, a prominent Jewish historian, concludes Hancock, who was a special advisor to the U.S. his essay with a statement that recognizes that the Holocaust Memorial Council, denies the Jewish methodology employed in the Holocaust-a mass uniqueness of the Holocaust by extending it to encom­ murder conducted under the auspices of a full state pass the Gypsies as well. He asserts that both the Jews bureaucracy-was historically unprecedented. and the Gypsies suffered the same fate during the Nazi Holocaust for exactly the same reasons thereby dis­ claiming that the Jews were the exclusive victims of

60 GENOCIDE the Nazi exterminating drive, a position frequently • 3.33. taken in the literature. Hancock cautions against Jackel, Eberhard. "The Miserable Practice of the generalizing the event beyond the Jews and Gypsies, Insinuators: The Uniqueness of the National-Socialist however, emphasizing that no other groups were Crimes Cannot Be Denied." Yad Vashem Studies 19 targeted for destruction with the same manner and (1988): 107-113. intention as they were. Jackel strongly criticizes those historians in the Historikerstreit who would seem to deny the uniqueness • 3.30. of the Holocaust. In an often quoted statement, he Heuser, Beatrice. "The Historikerstreit: Uniqueness articulates a fact he considers "obvious" and "well and Comparability of the Holocaust." German History known," that "the murder of the Jews was unique 6:1 (1988): 69-78. because never before had a state, with the authority Heuser reviews those writers important to the of its responsible leader, decided and announced its Historikerstreit with respect to their positions on the intention to liquidate as complete! y as possible a certain uniqueness and comparability of the Holocaust. She group of people, including the aged, women, children groups them into three categories. Some believe the and babies, and to implement the decision by means event to be singularly unique and incomparable. The of all the official instruments of power at its disposal." majority hold that a comparative approach can be used Jackel, however, does not consider the "question of to show both its singularity and its similarity to other uniqueness" to be decisive and provocatively asks, such events, accepting that comparison does not deny "Would it change anything had the National-Socialist uniqueness. Lastly, there are some like Ernst Nolte who murder not been unique?" seem to use the event's comparability in an apologist manner, minimizing the unique elements of the Holo­ • 3.34. caust and thus trying to mitigate the moral responsibili­ Jakobovits, Immanuel. "'Faith Ethics and the Holo­ ty of the German people for this crime. caust': Some Personal, Theological, and Religious Responses to the Holocaust." Holocaust and Genocide • 3.31 • Studies 3:4 (1988): 371-381. Hilberg, Raul. "German Motivations for the Destruc­ Jakobovits succinctly summarizes the response of tion of the Jews." Midstream (June 1965): 23-40. the Orthodox Jewish community to the claim that the Hilberg, noted historian and author of The De­ Holocaust is unique. They deny "the uniqueness of the struction of the European Jews, a work often referred Holocaust as an event different in kind, and not merely to as a foundation for those who take a methodologist's in extent and barbarity, from any previous national position on the uniqueness of the Holocaust, here catastrophe." They arrive at this position by seeing the explores the possible motivations of the Germans in destruction of European Jews as just another event their attempt to destroy all Jews during the Holocaust. within the pre-ordained realm of God's providence. He introduces his article with a statement declaring the Therefore they reject any term, such as Holocaust or Holocaust's uniqueness: "in conception and execution, Shoah, that sets it apart from previous Jewish catastro­ it was a unique occurance. When Adolf Hitler came phes. to power in 1933, a modern bureaucracy set out for the first time to destroy an entire people." • 3.35. "Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future: A • 3.32. Symposium." Judaism 16:3 (Summer 1967): 266-299 . Hilberg, Raul. "The Significance of the Holocaust." This symposium on Jewish values after the In The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy and Geno­ Holocaust contains within it one of the earliest discus­ cide. Ed. by Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton. sions of the uniqueness-universalist debate. Some of Millwood, NY: Kraus International Publications, 1980. the major thinkers who express their ideas here are LC 80-16913. ISBN 0-527-63807-2. George Steiner, Elie Wiesel, and Emil Fackenheim. Hilberg attempts to arrive at the significance of Both Weisel and Fackenheim emphasize the Holocaust's the Holocaust for Western civilization. He asserts his uniqueness, whereas Steiner urges a more universalist position that the Holocaust is unique by terming it "sui approach. generis" and "irreducibly distinct" from all other historical events. The implication of this uniqueness, • 3.36. Hilberg says, is that "one cannot explain it in terms Katz, Steven T. "The 'Unique' Intentionality of the of anything else ... .It demands its own literature and Holocaust." Modern Judaism 1 :2 (September 1981 ): its own sources." 161-183 .

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 61 Katz tries to determine if the Holocaust is unique in their tendency to relativize or historicize the unique­ as an act of genocide, distinguishing first between ness of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Earlier genocide as an attempt to destroy totally the identity writings by these same authors, Kulka shows, stressed of a group and genocide as an attempt to murder a the Holocaust's singularity, especially with respect to group as a whole. He then examines the Holocaust as the importance anti-Semitism played in National an act of genocide in terms of both Jewish and world Socialist ideology. He contrasts these writers with history, including in his examination such events as historians who have consistently considered the Holo­ the Armenian massacre and the destruction of American caust to be a unique event in world history. Indians, and concludes that the Holocaust is unique in terms of the intention of the Nazis to murder all Jews, • 3.40 * thus falling into the second category of genocide. Kuper, Leo. "Genocidal Process: The German Geno­ cide Against Jews." In Genocide: Its Political Use in • 3.37. the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Kren, George M. "The Holocaust: Some Unresolved Press, 1981. LC 81-16151. ISBN 0-300-02795-8. Issues." Annals of Scholarship 3:2 (1985): 39-61. Kuper states that the Holocaust had many unique Kren takes issue with various scholars' positions elements. He includes among them the global scope on the uniqueness issue, including those of Lucy of the Nazi intention to annihilate all Jews. Kuper Dawidowicz, Emil Fackenheim, Henry Feingold, and emphasizes the bureaucratic organization and systematic A. Roy Eckhardt, among others. He concludes that nature of the killing process that yielded death camps "what differentiates the Holocaust from previous forms organized in much the same way as a modern industrial of mass killings is that it entailed a long range, system­ plant. atically planned, bureaucratically administered deci­ sion ... to eliminate population groups possessing certain • 3.41 • characteristics defined by arbitrary, although formally Lanzmann, Claude. "From the Holocaust to the rational criteria." Holocaust." Telos: A Quarterly Journal of Radical Thought 42 (Winter 1979-80): 137-143. • 3.38. Lanzmann states emphatically that the Holocaust Kren, George M., and Leon Rappoport. The Holocaust was indeed unique, an incomparable crime, that calls and the Crisis ofHuman Behavior. New York: Holmes forth an "entirely new metaphysical-juridical concept & Meier, 1980. LC 79-2381. ISBN 0-8419-0544-4. of 'crime against humanity."' Although unique, one Kren and Rappoport approach the Holocaust as must not consider it a historical aberration, but rather a transformational event that they conceptualize as a as an event within historical context, where history has "new level of mass destruction." Surveying the key provided the necessary but not sufficient conditions for categories of motives, methods, and emotions, they its occurrence. To Lanzmann the Holocaust is "a conclude that the Holocaust was qualitatively different product of the entire Western World." To submerge from all previous acts of mass destruction. The motives the specificity of the event, however unique in its of the Nazis were unique. In no other case was a people methodology and in the degree of its , is slated for total destruction as state pol icy. The methods to gloss over the moral responsibility of the Nazis and employed, the fact that the killing process was "con­ the fact that the "Holocaust was the enactment of ducted more like a large scale industrial enterprise," Nazism." was also different from other mass destructions. Furthermore, they state that the uniqueness of the * 3.42. Holocaust is evident when "the focus of inquiry is Marrus, Michael Robert. "The Holocaust in Perspec­ shifted from historical trends to the level of personal tive." In The Holocaust in History. Hanover, NH : experience." The emotions that "accompanied or University Press of New England, 1987. LC 87-6291. followed it" are qualitivately different from those ISBN 0-874-51-0. experienced in other mass destructions. Marrus affirms how careful we must be in using the concept of uniqueness in relation to the Holocaust. • 3.39. Historians, uni ike social scientists, he explains, always Kulka, Otto Dov. "Singularity and Its Relativization: study unique events and not general concepts such as Changing Views in German Historiography on National "a war, rather than warfare and the Holocaust, rather Socialism and the 'Final Solution'." Yad Vashem than genocide." To apply the concept of uniqueness Studies 19 (1988): 151-86. to the Holocaust in such a way as to make it a "political Kulka, in response to the Historikerstreit, analyzes or theological affirmation" places the Holocaust in a the shift some major German historians have exhibited category that limits historical study. Within this

62 GENOCIDE framework, Marrus accepts the Holocaust as unique murder' of the Bolsheviks the logical and factual in the sense of being unprecedented. He agrees with precursor of 'racial murder' perpetrated by the National Bauer's position that one of the unique elements of the Socialists? .. .In its ultimate orgins, didn't Auschwitz Holocaust was the intention of the Nazis to murder all perhaps spring from a past which indeed would not Jews, but he also believes that the "killing process" wish to pass away?" With these questions Nolte seems utilized was unprecedented. to imply that the atrocities of Auschwitz were not unique but merely a copy of the Gulag . • 3.43. Neusner, Jacob. Stranger at Home: "The Holocaust," • 3.46. Zionism, and American Judaism. Chicago and London: Papazian, Pierre. "A 'Unique Uniqueness?'" Midstream University of Chicago Press, 1981. LC 80-19455. ISBN 30:4 (April 1984): 14-18. 0-226-57628-0. Papazian takes issue with scholars who claim In the preface to his book about American Juda­ categorical uniqueness for the Holocaust, where ism, Neusner, a prominent Jewish thinker, offers an uniqueness means that an event had no precedent and interesting concept of the uniqueness of the Holocaust. can have no antecedent. The Holocaust may have Accepting the Holocaust as "self evidently unique" to unique elements, and be unique to the Jewish people, theJ ewish community, N eusner focuses on the function who "never before were the victims of a premeditated its uniqueness plays in American Judaism. Coupled state policy of total elimination of a national minority," with the establishment of the state of Israel, the but as genocide it was not unique in history but uniqueness of the Holocaust makes up a part of a new analogous to other genocidal events such as the Armeni­ myth about which American Jews, a religiously and an massacre. Insisting on the Holocaust's uniqueness, culturally fragmented group, can organize their experi­ Papazian believes, has the effect of "diminishing the ence about themselves-a myth of "Holocaust and gravity and moral implication of any genocide any­ redemption." Neusner questions the value of this myth where, anytime." He reviews the positions of many as a way for Jews to understand themselves in the prominent writers whose works touch on the concept American context, stating that the Holocaust is simply of the Holocaust's uniqueness, including those of Lucy history and not "mythic theology." Dawidowicz, Elie Wiesel, A. Roy and Alice L. Eckhardt, and George M. Kren and Leon Rappoport, • 3.44. among others, and criticizes each. See "Was the Nolte, Ernst. "Between Historical Myth and Revision­ Holocaust Unique? ... " below (3.56) for responses. ism?: The Third Reich from the Perspective of 1980." Yad Vashem Studies 19 (1988): 49-63. • 3.47. Nolte, in an essay on the place of Nazism within United States. President's Commission on the Holo­ German history, examines the uniqueness of the caust. Report to the President. Washington, DC: Holocaust. While he admits to the fact that the Holo­ Government Printing Office, 1979. LC 80-600962. caust was both "singular and unique" and "without President Carter appointed this commission on precedent in its motivation and execution," the thrust November 1, 1978 in order to establish appropriate of his argument advances the idea that the Nazi Holo­ ways to commemorate the Holocaust. As a preface to caust was in its essence both a reaction to and a the commission's report, Elie Wiesel wrote a letter to "distorted copy" of the earlier annihilations of the the President in which he made an important statement Russian Revolution, making it "not a first act, not the regarding the uniqueness of the Holocaust. "The original." Many historians have interpreted these universality of the Holocaust lies in its uniqueness; the remarks of Nolte's as being apologist in nature for the Event is essentially Jewish, yet its interpretation is crimes of the Third Reich. universal." The Commission considered the uniqueness of the Holocaust to be one of the two most important • 3.45. elements in the philosophical rationale that underlay Nolte, Ernst. "A Past That Will Not Pass Away-A its work. They found the Holocaust's uniqueness to Speech It Was Possible to Write, But Not to Present." lie in the fact that it was a "systematic, bureaucratic Yad Vashem Studies 19 (1988): 65-73. extermination" different in its "manner and purpose." In the article that triggered the Historikerstreit, With regards to the Nazis' purpose, what was novel Nolte claims that "with the sole exception of the in their approach was that they claimed that "There is technical process of gassing" Auschwitz was not evidence indicating that the Nazis intended to ultimately unique. Nolte raises a series of questions, the most wipe out the Slavs and other people; had the war important of which are "wasn't the 'Gulag Archipelago' continued .. .Jews might not have remained the final more original than Auschwitz? Wasn't the 'class victims of Nazi genocide, but they were certainly its

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 63 first." And what was unprecedented was the intention civilization in the twentith century," as well as against to physically annihilate an entire people . the background of the extreme violence of our era.

• 3.48 • • 3.52. Rosenberg, Alan. "Was the Holocaust Unique? A Schorsch, Ismar. "The Holocaust and Jewish Survival." Peculiar Question?" In Genocide and the Modern Age: Midstream 27: 1 (January 1981): 38-42. Etiology and Case Studies ofMass Death. Ed. by Isidor According to Schorsch, an awareness of the Walliman and Michael N. Dobkowski. Westport, CT: Holocaust is steadily increasing among both the Jewish Greenwood Press, 1987. LC 86-9978. ISBN 0-313- community and the general public. Its recollection 24198-8. serves the function of helping to unify the potentially Rosenberg raises the complex issues surrounding divisive factions of American Jewry and has become, the uniqueness question and creates a topology for the even more than Israel, a major part of American Jewish classification of the various ways this issue has been identity. Schorsch finds that the persistent claim of the approached in Holocaust literature. He generates a Holocaust's uniqueness, however, adds nothing to the critique of some of the central approaches taken about horrors of the Jewish genocide. He finds it to be both the uniqueness of the Holocaust. historically and politically counter-productive, and advises that it be rejected. The "fixation on uniqueness • 3.49. has prevented us from reaching out by universalizing Rosensaft, Menachem. "The Holocaust: History as the lessons of the Holocaust," Schorsch states, and it Aberration." Midstream 23:5 (May 1977): 53-55. only "alienates potential allies from among other Rosensaft, representing the absolutist position on victims of organized human depravity." the uniqueness issue, sees the Holocaust as a totally unprecedented, incomprehensible historical aberra­ • 3.53 • tion, beyond the methods of historiography, beyond Stein, Richard A. "Against Relativism: A Comment normal language, and incomparable to other historical on the Debate on the Uniqueness of the Shoah." events. Patterns of Prejudice 21:2 (1987): 27-33. Stein criticizes the many writers and historians • 3.50. who have reassessed the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Rotenstreich, Nathan. "The Holocaust as a Unique He concludes that the Holocaust is in fact unique "in Historical Event." Patterns of Prejudice 22: 1 (Spring absolute, not relative terms" because of differences in 1988): 14-20. its "motivation, method, scope, and impact." He also Rotenstreich attacks those historians in the Histori­ adds that its uniqueness stems from the uniqueness of kerstreit who try to show that the Holocaust was not the Jewish people. unique. They claim that the Holocaust was either preconditioned by or a copy of Soviet atrocities. He • 3.54. argues that they have a confused notion of what it Steiner, George. "The Long Life of Metaphor-a means for an event to be unique and that they generate Theological-Metaphysical Approach to the Shoah." In a false analogy between race and class murder, postulat­ Comprehending the Holocaust: Historical and Literary ing cause and effect relationships that did not exist. Research. Ed. by Asher Cohen, et al. Frankfurt am Rotenstreich also claims that the intent of these histori­ Main: Peter Lang, 1988. LC 88-8235. ISBN 3-631- ans was apologetic, that their goal was to discredit the 40428-X. singularity of Nazism and the Holocaust for the purpose George Steiner, the reknowned literary critic, of diminishing German moral responsibility. discusses the uniqueness issue within the context of the hermeneutic dilemma that the Holocaust presents to • 3.51. Judaism. The dilemma becomes manifest in the ques­ Rubenstein, Richard L. The Cunning of History: 1he tions of whether there is language adequate enough in Holocaust and the American Future. New York: Harper which to speak about Auschwitz, and, on a theological and Row, 1975. LC 75-9334. ISBN 0-06-067013-4. level, whether after the Holocaust there is any longer Rubenstein states that there were unique elements language adequate enough to speak to, or about, God. to the Holocaust, namely, that it was an unprecedented He denies the uniqueness of the Holocaust on quantita­ attempt at genocide carried out by a legally sanctioned tive and qualitative grounds, rejecting both the inten­ state bureaucracy. This uniqueness, however, must be tionalist and the methodologist arguments for unique­ seen in the context of the Holocaust as "an expression ness. Steiner, however, recognizes that the centrality of some of the most significant political, moral, of the Holocaust's "presumed uniqueness" functions religious and demographic tendencies of Western

64 GENOCIDE as "the cement of Jewish identity," uniting Jews of all • 3.57. cultures and religious leanings. Wertham, Frederic. "Looking at Potatoes from Below." In A Sign/or Cain: An Exploration ofHuman Violence. • 3.55. London: Robert Hale, 1966. LC 66-20825 . Talmon, J .L. "European History-Seedbed of the Wertham strongly asserts that in process and Holocaust." Midstream (May 1973): 3-25. methodology the Holocaust was completely unprece­ Talmon, an important Jewish historian, asserts that dented. He adds, however, that, although unprecedent­ the Holocaust was in fact unique, different from all ed, it was not a unique occurrence in the sense that it other earlier massacres. Its key differences lie in the cannot happen again under similar circumstances. intention of the Nazis to annihilate completely all Jews as well as in the systematic methods utilized for their • 3.58 • killing. He analyzes those events and ideas that may Willis, Robert E. "Confessing God after Auschwitz: have made the Holocaust possible. A Challenge for Christianity." Cross Currents 28 (Fall 1978): 269-287. • 3.56. In examining the significance of the Holocaust for "Was the Holocaust Unique?: Responses to Pierre Christian theology, Willis analyzes the uniqueness of Papazian." Midstream 30:4 (April 1984): 19-25. the Holocaust in terms of the uniqueness of Auschwitz. The major writers whom Papazian criticized in He concludes that the Holocaust was qualitatively his above cited article defend their positions and show unique and discontinuous with other evil events. The where they agree and disagree with Papazian's com­ key to its uniqueness lies in the methodology em­ ments on the uniqueness issue. Included are responses ployed-the "bureaucratic and technological apparatus from Yehuda Bauer, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, A. Roy and of state" that was put into effect. Alice L. Eckhardt, George M. Kren and Leon Rappo­ port, and Nora Levin, among others.

The Issue of the Holocaust as a Unique Event 65