The Convergence of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
For the past four decades, efforts to comprehend the Holocaust have, understandably, been focused almost exclusively on the Hitlerian Final Solution. Only minimal and often cursory attention has been given to parallel genocidal acts committed by the Third Reich (such as against the Gypsies). Contemporary events outside Europe and not related to World War II and the racist policies of the German state (such as the fate of the Ache Indians in Paraguay) were almost studiously ignored. Whenever comparisons were made by those engaged in Holocaust studies, they were done largely to set the Holocaust apart rather than integrating it into the larger 20th century phenomenon of genocide in general and ethno-genocide in particular. On the whole, the strategy of comparison taken by Holocaust scholars was largely one-directional, namely, to keep the Holocaust separate, an event standing distinctly alone. The obverse, underlying muted assumption implied that the study of non-Holocaust genocides would contribute little of substance towards understanding the depths of the genocide experienced by European Jewry.
On the other hand, it was maintained that Holocaust Studies could shed important light on other genocides because of the extraordinary breadth and depth of the Final Solution. Within the Holocaust, one assumed, were virtually all aspects of the genocidal experience; hence, more than one Holocaust scholar enthusiastically proclaimed, the universality of the Holocaust. Given its scope, they claimed, the Holocaust covered the entire gamut of philosophical and methodological problems and, therefore, could profit those studying other "lesser" incidents of genocide. In other words, the methodology of comparison was encouraged only to demonstrate its inutility to Holocaust Studies per se while still remaining an enlightening approach for those engaged in studying other genocides. The contradiction remained unchallenged and a stock practice till most recently.
By now this position has become increasingly untenable. As knowledge of other genocides expands, the arguments seeking to insulate the Holocaust from findings about other genocides, especially those after Auschwitz, no longer persuade. Investigations into recent genocidal massacres growing out of ethnic conflicts uncover categories of experiences and analytical problems not encountered in the study of the Holocaust. On the contrary, as investigators uncover new examples of genocidal experiences, it becomes increasingly evident that scholars of the Holocaust would learn little new of substance about the genocidal dimensions of the Holocaust without also thoroughly acquainting themselves with non-Holocaust studies. Not to do so would be to condemn Holocaust scholarship to rapid intellectual parochialism, eventually driving its practitioners towards a dead-end of sterile repetition of interpretation and unimaginative gathering of facts, thereby eventually reducing the study of the Holocaust to a form of antiquarianism.
That is no idle danger. There are already too many signs of this in the literature. To escape from this intellectual cul-de-sac, a few Holocaust researchers have accepted the challenge by admitting that a new conceptual dynamics would prevail and new ground broken were Holocaust Studies more closely merged with Genocide Studies. They see that greater cooperation between Holocaust and non-Holocaust scholarship must take place, not in the name of mutual separation, and certainly not for the sake of moral relativism, but, instead, for the sake of mutual enlightenment. With an on-going exchange of influence, with a willingness of one to learn from the other, the next generation of scholarship will undoubtedly make considerable headway in fathoming the greatest curse of the twentieth century, genocide, at the heart of which stands the Final Solution, and, again, not on account of its supposed status of "superiority," but on account of the Holocaust's strategic cultural and chronological location in the center of Europe, at mid-point of an unprecedentedly bloody century in which genocidal thought and deed received its highest articulation and visibility to date.
The rising tide of ethnonationalism throughout the globe since the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union itself in 1991 has laid the groundwork from Vilna to Vladivostok for a dozen potential and actual genocidal ethnic conflicts. The entire multiethnic populated region has become, once again, in the absence of central imperial authority, a breeding ground for bitter polarization along ethnic fault-lines. These provide a vast range of opportunities for scholars to study ethnogenocide-related issues, from detecting early warning signs to assembling evidence to determine guilt in international tribunals. In each case, whether in ex-Yugoslavia or in post-Soviet Caucasia and now in Rwanda, it has become evident that while acquaintance with the Holocaust can facilitate understanding of these events, it is equally valid that familiarity with these new tragedies can open windows onto some of the darker corners of the Holocaust that have so far either evaded the attention of researchers or defied their interpretation.
Of necessity, Holocaust and Genocide Studies have been converging, a quite natural development, some scholars' reluctance to acknowledge this notwithstanding. An intellectual symbiosis has taken place in recognition that the one depends on the other for both methodological and analytical advances. Exclusion of one from the other will result in narrowness of conceptualization, as many publications already testify. Cooperative exploration promises mutual intellectual enrichment, as recent research is beginning to demonstrate.
It is the express purpose of the essays in Forum to encourage this approach as a means of guiding genocide scholarship into the twenty-first century, a century already threatened with the spread of radical and genocidal mono-ethnonationalism, in a world whose ethno-variagated populations are becoming increasingly ethno-centered and intolerant of "the other," where each antagonist ingeniously finds new ways of "cleansing" entire regions of ethno-enemies. This trend towards ethnic confrontations and polarization is constantly expanding the range of questions scholars must address as they delve into the problematics posed by each case of post-Holocaust genocide and near-genocide. Increasingly, one must admit that from a widening historical perspective, the Holocaust not only stands out as a culmination of what preceded it, but looks, more and more, like a prelude, a symptom of what has followed. As such, given its pivotal position, it needs to be explored, not just for itself but in the broader context of the entire 20th century in which mass murder metamorphosed and continues to do so all too often into genocidal killing.
Future issues of Forum will delve more specifically into the general problems just touched upon here by way of introduction.
Henry R. Huttenbach