Academic Research on the Holocaust

(Prof. Yehuda Bauer, Yad Vashem, Israel, September 1999)

The Background

On the face of it, a large number of universities all over the world teach and conduct research about the Holocaust. In the US there are many hundreds of courses offered that deal with Holocaustrelated topics. In the UK, the universities of South Hamton, Leicester, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, and some others do likewise. In Germany, practically every university deals with the Nazi period, there is the Centre for the Study of AntiSemitism (Zentrum fuer Antisemitismusforschung) in Berlin, and a seminar on Holocaust at Bochum. In Freiburg, the Holocaust is taught in the context of dealing with the Nazi period. In Warsaw, the department for Jewish Studies deals with the Holocaust. In Sweden a course on the Holocaust is offered at Uppsala University. A similar situation obtains in many other countries.

However, appearances are misleading. And one has to differentiate between teaching and B.A or even M.A courses, and research. In the US, for instance, the university teachers of undergraduate in most cases have no proper grounding in Holocaust history. Research is concentrated on the perpetrators and the American bystanders. There are very few exceptions (at NYU, at UCLS, and a couple of other places). In the whole of the United States and Canada, historians dealing with the Holocaust who can do research on Eastern Europe (where after all, most of the victims and most of the destruction took place) can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Holocaust is taught largely by wellmeaning persons who have taken in some of the secondary literature and teach the subject on an undergraduate level. On the other hand, interest on the part of the students is tremendous. Which of course is the reason why so many courses are taught. The emphasis on the perpetrators, and in much smaller part on what we inaccurately call the "bystanders", clouds the main issue  one cannot deal with the Holocaust unless one knows why the Jews were victims, and what there relations were with the nations where they dwelt. Comparisons with other genocides are even more difficult, as only very few academics anywhere deal with them (at UCLA, in New York state, at Yale). There is a relatively new Association of Genocide Scholars  (chaired by Roger W. Smith), which is struggling hard to survive.

In many universities Holocaust studies become part of Jewish Studies programs, thereby making the subject a sectorial one and preventing an interdisciplinary approach. They are tucked away, safely as far as the administrations is concerned, in to a 'Jewish comer", with large numbers of students (in their majority not jewish), but no longer threatening vested departmental interest which look askance at the "invasion" into their fields by this newfangled concern. The fact that the Holocaust is a specific jewish tragedy but with universal implications that must be dealt with all of humanity, is not sufficiently clear to most academic administrators.

Much of the teaching of the holocaust also occurs in departments of literature, philosophy, theology, psychology and sociology. There the historical background is usually  with some exceptions  missing completely, and students analyse human suffering as such, psychological issues as such, all of which can be done without dealing necessarily with this specific unprecedented disaster.

There are in the United States, where Chairs dedicated to the subject, remain empty largely because there is no one qualified to fill them. A resent attempt to found a Chair at Harward ended in confusion and no one was appointed. The Chair at UCLA is held by an Israeli guest  Saul Friedlander  who is approaching retirement. The Chair at Brandeis was renamed because they could not find any one to fill it. The same happened in St Louis. The Chair at Yeshiva University is rotated, and its incumbency unclear. There are two hopeful developments: at Clark University (Worcester, Mass.) a Holocaust Centre has been established, with two Chairs, preparing M.A and PHD candidates  except there is no one to teach Eastern Europe, so there is the usual exclusive emphasis on National Socialism. At the Richard Stockton College (Pomona, N.J.) there is a rotating Holocaust Chair, which is now part of an M.A program training teachers. Again, there is no one teaching Eastern Europe.

In the UK great studies forward have been made, but again, Eastern Europe is largely left out. Only in Germany is there a trend in a different direction. At the Historical Seminar in Freiburg, at the Hamburg institut fuer Sozialforschung, and in some other places, young academics learn the necessary languages and are beginning to deal with the crucial issues of the developments in Eastern Europe, in combination with the history of the perpetrators. There, too, sociological and psychological studies are being begun, based on historical knowledge.

The situation in Israel is not much better. There are Holocaust Studies departments at the four Israeli Universities, but only two academics deal with Eastern Europe. At Hebrew University, of three tenure track positions a few years ago, only two are now left. There are tremendous financial and bureaucratic obstacles in getting more people trained to teach  essentially – the future teachers of the subject. The students are there, the teachers are not.

In all these countries, young people are preparing themselves for academic careers must be given some hope of future employment, otherwise they will go and study other subject. In Germany, practical all the young academics swiftly becoming first classexperts in Holocaust Studies are without any real prospects of academic employment. "When my present scholarship ends in July, 1999, 1 will take my hat and go begging in the streets", one of the best of them said to me only a couple of weeks ago. On the other hand, someone in the US with the proper qualifications would presumably be lapped up immediately  except that there are very few opportunities of acquiring the necessary knowledge. While therefore a great deal of lip service is paid to the importance of studying and researching Holocaust and Genocide, and it is clear to everyone that unless one develops a strong academic basis there will be no training in the subject, in practice most people who teach it have no real wellrounded and universal expertise. Of course, one does not have to have hundreds of such experts, but those that are there cannot fill the needs. The counterquestion then is  well, if so, then who are the multitudes that come to the innumerable academic conferences on the Holocaust held all over the place? The answer is that the best among them are indeed experts in partial aspects of the topic. Others, as in any academic discipline, do not have any great findings to contribute to the general knowledge. Which leaves the general field to mystics and preachers of different sorts; it is not difficult to see that if this persists, interests in the subject will wane and, as stated above, without an academic base of educated teachers there will ultimately be no one available in primary and secondary or high schools to teach the children.

Possible Task Force Activities in the Field of Academic Research Academic Subcommittee

It is a generally accepted fact that in the long run no teaching of the Holocaust, or even meaningful remembrance, are possible without an academic base that will provide expert knowledge and make possible teacher training. Such academic bases in different countries will have to deal both with the general aspects of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and with the countryspecific issue relevant to the local situation. Academic involvement comprises the following interdisciplinary teaching on the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level; research into different aspects of the subject on an international, interdisciplinary, comparative and interfaith basis; active participation in teacher training in the framework of Schools or Institutions of Education Departments.

What is needed is to encourage academic institutions to establish tenure track positions that will engage  on the international interdisciplinary, comparative and interfaith basis mentioned here in research, teaching and training in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. To achieve that aim, travelling scholarship should be made available to young persons willing to study the subject wherever the best teachers are found; the PHD degrees should preferably be awarded in the country where the person plans to live and research and teach. Out of a group of such students, the best will hopefully be employed by colleges and universities to fill the needs outlined her. Emphasis in Holocaust Studies should be placed on acquiring the language and disciplinary skills that will enable the candidates to deal with the victims, perpetrators and bystanders in a wellbalanced form. The same will apply to comparative Genocide Studies. The Task Force could consider the following options for practical action: