Dr. Steven L. Jacobs
Holocaust and Genocide Studies: The Future Is Now

Dr. Steven L. Jacobs serves as the Rabbi of Temple B'nai Shalom of Huntsville, Alabama. He is the author and editor of five books and many scholarly articles and reviews dealing with the Shoah, and continues to teach Judaic and Shoah Studies at various colleges and universities. He is also the Editor of the papers of the late Dr. Raphael Lemkin (1901-1959, author of our word "genocide" and moving force behind the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide).

This article is an abridged version of the paper Rabbi Jacobs presented at the Second Bi-Annual Holocaust Conference at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, April 2-4, 1998.

I. At the 27th Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Christian Churches in Tampa, Florida, in March of 1997, Henry Huttenbach of The Center for the Study of Ethnonationalism of The City University of New York distributed a two-page brief entitled "J'Accuse! An Open Letter: Remembering the Past - Forgetting the Present," wherein he challenged the very purpose of examining the Holocaust "if not to deter genocide in the future." This on the heels of the publication of Alan Rosenbaum's controversial book Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (Boulder: Westview Press 1996), raises important and significant questions as to the very raison d'être of both Holocaust Studies and the emerging field of Genocide Studies as well as the interrelationship between the two. [...]
Huttenbach originally distributed his two-page missive in person at the Conference, and later reprinted it in his newsletter The Genocide Forum: A Platform For post-Holocaust Commentary, together with an Afterword dated April 15 1997. [...] He states:

At the very end of the Conference, a single panel on "Other Genocides" is appended, as if the topic were an afterthought, a gesture of tokenism. It is there as not to disturb the atmosphere of total devotion to the Holocaust. Yet this gives rise to the question "Why Study the Holocaust at all, it not to deter genocide in the future?" Was not the Conference founded in 1970 precisely to help guarantee against the return to a similar evil? At least to quicken the Christian conscience? And what has happened? A quarter of a century later, our collective intellectual attention is so riveted on the past and so enmeshed with the non-existent future as we search for "Early Warning Signals," that no eyes are on the present.

The "present" which presses Huttenbach's own conscience is that of the intertribal inter-ethnic genocidal war between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, Burundi and East Zaire, resulting in the murderous deaths of more than 200,000 Hutus. Though not addressed in this appeal, certainly the other genocidal tragedy of the present moment - that of the Serbs, Croats, Muslim, and now Albanians, in Bosnia - must make an equally strong claim to conscience and call for activity. He then continues:

Have we lost our moral direction? Have we up-ended our priorities? Are we about to plan next year's gathering without giving this contemporary tragedy even a passing nod? It reminds one of a Kafkaesque setting, a banquet festivity inside as the Angel of Death rides outside. Let those who attended take note of the motto of two international events held in Oxford and Berlin: "Remembering for the Future." Instead we seem to be remembering for the sake of the past, for the sake of remembering, itself a form of amnesia.

To be properly fair to those two individuals who remain primarily responsible for the Annual Scholars Conference - Franklin H. Littell, formerly of Temple University and Hubert Locke, Washington University, Seattle - and those who have since joined them in planning, organizing and promoting this annual investigation of the Holocaust, however, to criticize them for failing to do that which is not their primary or stated agenda is somewhat if not directly misplaced. It is only now, fifty years after the closure of the Second World War, that we are only beginning to address the meaning and implication of these horrific events, at the very same time that we are still encountering new information, even more details, further helping us fill in our portrait of this Götterdämmerung. Thus, it seems to me, this Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Christian Churches should not be faulted for its failure to refocus its agenda on contemporary genocides, but, rather, encouraged to expand its agenda to include them, as is now the case, not only in response to Huttenbach's own critique but the concerns expressed by other scholars in a similar, if less dramatic vein, including the author himself in his capacity as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Genocide Scholars. It must, also, be stated that there are other conferences which do address primarily non-Holocaust genocidal concerns, including two already sponsored by the Association of Genocide Scholars and more planned for the future. Huttenbach concludes his critique with a warning not only to those concerned with the Holocaust of the past, contemporary genocides of the present, and, perhaps most frightening, the genocides which will confront us in the future:

Let this then serve as an appeal that we, entrusted with the legacy of moral purpose emanating from the still warm ashes of Auschwitz, open our eyes and hearts of the genocide of this day, of today. Let us give purpose to our years of study by directing our energies toward the evil of the present, inspired by the evil of the past, before we find ourselves waking up when it will be too late. Only this time there will be no excuse for not having known. Let it not be said of us that we failed because of a myopic Holocaust fixation.

To which we must respond, "Amen!"

II.With the accuracy of hindsight, perhaps, it must be acknowledged that the overwhelmingly primary focus on the tragedy of the Holocaust has inhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, scholarly examination of pre-Holocaust genocides as we have attempted to collect, examine, analyze the literal mountains of evidence, and ponder both the meaning and the implications of this historic event. Two primary factors have led, I believe, to this singular focusing: 1) the aforementioned sheer quantity of available evidence of this most documented genocide in the history of Western Civilization; and 2) the strong, passionate belief in so many scholarly quarters that this Holocaust remains unique in history, and, therefore, somewhat misguidedly, an almost exclusive domain of study. That view has recently begun to be challenged in many quarters, and has led not only to an examination of pre-Holocaust genocides but contemporary ones as well.

Alan S. Rosenbaum, Professor of Philosophy of Cleveland State University, recently published a collection of essays entitled Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, wherein he gathered in one volume eight prominent scholars and allowed them to address this question of uniqueness in their own words. Strong reactions from some of the contributors prior to its publication almost led to the derailment of the book and disassociation with its publication. As was expected, scholars lined up on both sides of the issue in question.

Accompanying the essays, in addition to Rosenbaum's own Introduction (1-9), was the incredibly strong voice of Israel Charny, Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. For Charny, it remains the human equation which is paramount in any discussion of genocide:

I believe that all cases of genocide are similar and different, special and unique, and appropriately subject to comparative analysis. [...]

I object to any statement that in any way minimizes the significance or sacredness of any people's losses, even when the understandable and legitimate purpose is to honor one's own people's tragedy, or even the specific tragedy of any other given people that one is respectfully researching or is committed to remembering.

I also object to scholars who transform the material of genocide scholarship into definitional arguments about what is or what is not "genocide." [xi]

For Richard L. Rubenstein, now President of the University of Bridgeport, it is the "religious element that makes the Holocaust unique" (17), retaining as it does "religio-mythic traditions of biblical religion" (11). Arguing even more strongly the case, Steven T. Katz from Boston University, regards the Holocaust as "historically and phenomenologically unique" in contradistinction to all other genocidal moments and all other victim groups (19-20). Comparativist Robert F. Melson from Purdue University maintains that the genocide of the Armenians earlier in this century was "the first total genocide of the twentieth century" and the "prototype for genocides that came after," including the Holocaust (88).
While not addressing the uniqueness question directly, both Seymour Drescher of the University of Pittsburgh and Barbara Green of Cleveland State University argue for the primacy of economic motivations resulting in horrendous brutalities in both the African enslaving experience and Stalin's Ukrainian collectivization rather than actual commitments to genocides of subject peoples.

Arguing against the uniqueness of the Holocaust, Ian Hancock of the University of Texas, Austin, explicitly states, "The fact remains, however, that whether Gypsies [sic] and Jews are `races' does not matter; Hitler believed both populations to constitute a racial threat, and race was his justification for their attempted extermination" (47). Continuing in this vein, Armenian scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian, formerly of the State University of New York at Geneseo, writes, "In brief, the phenomenon of the holocaust [sic], contrary to prevailing assumptions, is not a sui generis phenomenon but one bound up with extra-ideological contingencies" (130).

Most disturbing, and most strident, is the essay by David Stannard of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, who, in presenting the case for the genocide of the Native American peoples, rejects the claim to Holocaust uniqueness as "an exclusive idea" (167), and "an outright denial of the genocidal suffering of others" (194).

The arguments, claims, and counter-claims go on, with scholars continuing to line up on one side or the other. The danger of focusing on this question of uniqueness is both to move it to center stage and potentially inhibit serious equally important examinations of other genocidal acts. Like the debate surrounding the "intentionalist" view of the Holocaust versus the "functionalist" view of the Holocaust, such concerns must not be allowed to deter us from what must, ultimately, be our primary agenda, in Henry Huttenbach's words "to deter genocide in the future." It is, thus, the broader questions associated with all genocides - questions of Where? How? Why? - which must occupy our collective energies. To be sure, questions of definitions and categorizations are the legitimate purview of sound scholarship, but not at the expense of an examination of the events themselves and the possible prevention of genocides yet to be born.

III. Occupying something of a middle ground, Yehuda Bauer, perhaps the dean of Holocaust historians, at the Institute of Contemporary History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, argues for the uniqueness of the Holocaust while at the same times stressing the legitimacy of defining other acts of mass murdering as genocide. In two relatively recent essays, "Comparison of Genocides" (published in: Problems of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference on `Problems of Genocide', April 21-23, 1995, National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia. Cambridge & Toronto: Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation, 1997) and "Holocaust and Genocide: Some Comparisons" (published in: Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust In A Changing World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991) he explores the relationship between the Holocaust and other genocides.

In his 1997 essay, Bauer prefers the word genocide to describe "the murder of an ethnicity" (216), which, in turn, would encompass the Holocaust, while reserving the term Holocaust for its own unique event, i.e. "the total murder of Jews by the Nazis" (220), primarily for four reasons: 1) "the attempt was intended to be total and global," 2) "the assault on the Jews was purely ideological," 3) "the onslaught on the Jews was a centrally coordinated, governmental, bureaucratic affair," and 4) "Nazi anti-Semitism was not just part of Nazi ideology, but one of its central pillars" (220-222).

In his earlier essay, he boldly ventures to use the specific term "Holocaust" for the destruction of the Jews, but given its explicability, is willing to permit its use outside its own framework:

Total physical annihilation I prefer to call Holocaust, and that of course means that whereas that is what happened to Jews - and the fact that a percentage of Jews survived in Europe was due not to lack of any desire on the part of the Nazis to kill them, but to their failure to catch all of them - it could, mutatis mutandis, happen to others as well. The term Holocaust should therefore be used in this double sense, of the specific fate that befell the Jews, and of the fate of other peoples if their experience should happen to parallel that of the Jews. (40)

For Henry Huttenbach, [title of his article: "Locating the Holocaust on the Genocide Spectrum: Toward a Methodology of Definition and Categorization," in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1988), pp. 289-303], on the other hand, "what is needed is a system of definition and a methodology of categorization" (291) classifying then by "the methods employed as well as by antecedents" (292), reminding us, once again, that "the issue is the fate of a group and not the goals of the perpetrators" (294).
Holocaust scholar Nora Levin (formerly of Graetz college) in her essay "The Relationship of Genocide to Holocaust Studies," [in: Holocaust Literature: A Handbook of Critical, History, and Literary Writings. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993, pp. 194-199], strikes a much-needed cautionary note against the overuse and abuse of the word/term genocide to include in its wake all examples of "man's inhumanity to man," with the concomitant danger of the Holocaust receding in our collective unconscious, a possible merging of various distinctiveness, and blurring of the lines.

Franklin H. Littell shifts focus somewhat and concerns himself with the religio-theological questions in attempting to address the meaning of the Holocaust:

The Holocaust, the ultimate denial of God and of the Imago Dei, is the legitimate if bitter fruit of that capitulation to idolatry. Today, the Scriptural `forty years in the wilderness,' the critical question for Christian theology is this: How, after Christendom has done its worst, shall we understand the mystery of Jewish survival? And the subsidiary question, which has to do with the survival of credible Christianity, is this: How shall the integrity of the gentile worshippers of God be restored? (97). [Title of Littell's article: "Holocaust and Genocide: The Essential Dialectic," in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1987), pp. 95-104]

While seemingly his primary concern, Littell has, also addressed himself to defining and refining a "genocidal early warning system" of 15 points as a touchstone to evaluate potentially violent conflicts.
I cite these particular scholars, by no means all, to indicate both the complexity of the various issues involved and the expansion of thinking from Holocaust to genocide and back again. Indeed, the study of the Holocaust has led to an increasing awareness in other examples, pre- and post-, of genocidal intent and the carrying out of those intentions, while, in truth and objectively, not diminishing either the focus or study of the Holocaust itself. It has attracted to itself a new generation of scholars, [...] whose concerns are not with the Holocaust but with genocidal plight of others. It has also generated a serious scholarly journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies to which we now direct our attention.

IV.As of this date, April 1998, Holocaust and Genocide Studies has appeared thirty-five times since its inaugural issue of 1986. Presently being published by Oxford University Press in England, in co-operation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, the high academic and scholarly level of its articles and reviews, its primary foci, has been maintained from the very first. [...] Its present Senior Editor-in-Chief is Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University.

Content-analyzing the entire run of both the article and reviews of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as to whether their primary focus is that of "Holocaust" or "genocide" is most insightful with regard to the orientation of contemporary scholarly endeavors, given the reality that there presently exists no other scholarly endeavor addressing these twin concerns. [Henry Huttenbach has just announced a new publication Journal of Genocide Research with its first issue slated for Spring 1999.] My conclusions are as follows:

Between 1986 and 1997, 208 articles were published: 189 articles dealing primarily with the Holocaust and only 19 or 10% dealing primarily with "other genocides" or non-Holocaust concerns. They include:

1) Genocide - 8;
2) Armenians - 5;
3) Native Americans - 1;
4) Religion and Theology - 1;
5) Ukrainians - 1;
6) Argentina - 1;
7) anti-semitism - 1; and
8) Israel - 1.

Turning to the reviews, the results were comparably similar: Between 1986 and 1997, 246 reviews were published: 208 dealing primarily with the Holocaust and only 38 or 16% with "other genocides" or non-Holocaust concerns. These include:

1) Genocide - 7;
2) Armenians - 5;
3) anti-semitism - 4;
4) Religion and Theology - 4;
5) Cambodia - 4;
6) Israel - 2;
7) Bosnia - 2;
8) "Rightist Politics" - 2;
9) Ukrainians - 1;
10) Evil - 1;
11) Human Rights - 1;
12) Psychoanalysis - 1; and
13) Yiddish Literature - 1.

What this analysis confirms is that which has been suspected all along: That the Holocaust continues to dominate scholarly work in the area of such research and writing, and that the journal itself Holocaust and Genocide Studies, has, realistically, been somewhat misnamed. If it is the continuing intent of the editors and publishers to focus primarily on the Holocaust, with an occasional nod to other areas of genocidal research and writing, then so be it, with a strong suggestion of a name change to something akin to The Journal of Holocaust Studies. If, however, the intent of both editors and publishers is to strive for a reasonable accommodating balance between the Holocaust and other genocidal events, and retain the integrity of the title Holocaust and Genocide Studies, then let us hope, in coming issues, we will see more and more articles and reviews addressing these "other genocides." Such an expanded and more balanced agenda will not diminish the importance of "Holocaust work," but, again, redirect our collective energies to both present-day genocides and future preventative concerns.

V.[...] What has been shown, I believe, is the over-balancing concern with Holocaust work, to the present detriment of Genocide Studies. The following concrete suggestions are therefore offered not in the spirit of condemnation, but, rather, in strengthening not only this relationship between "Holocaust Studies" and "Genocide Studies" but to focus our work in both arenas:

#1: Serious scholarly work on both Holocaust and Genocide cannot only concern itself with the historical evidence of such tragedies but must append to its conclusions significant, practical suggestions which address the realities of the present and the unplanned-for realities of the future. Fifty years from the closure of World War II may, in truth, be too little time to gather in, evaluate, and analyze all the evidence associated with the Holocaust. Likewise, much, much more investigate work must be done with regard to pre-Holocaust and post-Holocaust occasions of genocide. Yet, in both instances, such work necessarily, must no longer remain the purview of the academic communities only. Too much is at stake in both the present day and the future for such work to be confined to the so-called "ivory tower." Scholars must continue to network with those outside the academic world - including activist organizations [...] with the conscious understanding that what is required of all involved are concrete, practical ideas and suggestions to address contemporary humanity's barbarities and tomorrow's genocidal beginnings.

#2: Inside academia, departments of "Holocaust Studies" or clusters of courses within other department [e.g. History, Judaic Studies, etc.] must be consciously expanded to include courses in genocide.

"Holocaust work" is, by definition, both inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary. So is "Genocide work." University administrations and faculties must be sensitized to the realities that such course offerings are mandated by our contemporary post-Holocaust work, ideally becoming part of the core offerings of all curricula, in both the humanities and the social sciences.

A new generation of scholars must be trained with both a knowledge of the Holocaust and a commitment of a broader Weltanschauung, focusing not only on the one but on both, and beginning to focus not only on the lessons to be learned but on applications of such learned lessons as well.

#3: We must stop the academic internecine warfare with regard to the question of the uniqueness of the Holocaust in contradistinction to all other practices of genocidal destruction, refocus our thinking, and accept Israel Charny's credo, "I believe that all cases of genocide are similar and different, special and unique, and appropriately subject to comparative analysis."

Recognizing the complexities of the subjects at hand, the material involved, and the analyses required, we do both a serious disservice in misperceiving ourselves as two "armed camps," arguing for the primacy of one over the lesser inferiority of the other, to the detriment of both. Our common agenda must be the prevention of the genocides of the future as the tie which binds us together and simply will not allow us to go our separate ways.

#4: Journals of both Holocaust Studies and Genocide Studies must devote a portion of their publications to continuing to explore the interrelationship between the two. Such explorations will, I believe, lessen the polarization between the two, and result in expanded thinking in both areas. Holocaust is a sub-category of genocide; not the other way around. If Elie Wiesel is correct, "if everything is holocaust, then nothing is the Holocaust," so, too, may it be said that "if everything is genocide, then nothing is Genocide." Definitions and categorization do occupy prominent places on the agendas of academic concerns, but not the dominant places. That must continue to be reserved for the concrete and the practical.

The maturing of Holocaust Studies at this end of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of the Twenty-first Century has spawned this new discipline of Genocide Studies. The concrete, practical benefits which, hopefully, will now ensue from such scholarship have the potential to benefit all humankind. May it yet prove to be so.