Holocaust studies, or sometimes Holocaust research, is a scholarly discipline that encompasses the historical research and study of the Holocaust. Institutions dedicated to Holocaust research investigate the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary aspects of Holocaust methodology, demography, sociology, and psychology. It also covers the study of Nazi Germany, World War II, Jewish history, religion,

Christian-Jewish relations Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most import ...

Holocaust theology Holocaust theology is a body of theological and philosophical debate concerning the role of God in the universe in light of the Holocaust of the late 1930s and early 1940s. It is primarily found in Judaism. Jews were killed in higher proportions ...

, ethics, social responsibility, and genocide on a global scale. Exploring trauma, memories, and testimonies of the experiences of Holocaust survivors, human rights, international relations, Jewish life, Judaism, and

Jewish identity Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of Identity (social science), perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jews, Jewish. Under a broader definition, Jewish identity does not depend on whether a person is regarded as ...

in the post-Holocaust world are also covered in this type of research.

Academic research

Among the research institutions and academic programs specializing in Holocaust research are: *

Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hist ...

at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
University of Minnesota *

European Holocaust Research Infrastructure The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) is an international digital infrastructure and community. It is a joint undertaking of Holocaust historians, archivists, and specialists in digital humanities. Through the development of heritag ...

– it is financed by the

7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...

of the European Union * Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, named after the German judge and prosecutor at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials ( Fritz Bauer)
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
(journal), Oxford Academic. * International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in

Jerusalem, Israel Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

* Polish Center for Holocaust Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences in

Warsaw, Poland Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-cen ...

* Stockton University offered the first Master of Arts in Holocaust and genocide degree in the United States in 1999 * Uppsala Programme for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Uppsala, Sweden *

Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) is a research centre dedicated to the research and documentation of and education on all aspects of antisemitism, racism and the Holocaust, including its emergence and aftermath. It was d ...

Scholars

Prominent Holocaust scholars include: *

H. G. Adler Hans Günther Adler (2 July 1910, in Prague – 21 August 1988, in London) was a German language poet, novelist, scholar, and Holocaust survivor."The Long View", Ruth Franklin, ''The New Yorker'', January 31, 2011, Books, pp 74-78. Life Born in P ...

(1910–1988), a Czechoslovakian Jew who survived the Holocaust and became one of the early scholars of the Holocaust. *

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

(1906–1975), a German-American political theorist who is known for the term "banality of evil", used to describe

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Yehuda Bauer Yehuda Bauer ( he, יהודה באואר; born April 6, 1926) is a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is a professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University o ...

(b. 1926), a Czechoslovak-born Israeli historian and scholar on the Holocaust and

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. *

Doris Bergen Doris Leanna Bergen (born October 19, 1960) is a Canadian academic and Holocaust historian. She is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto, the only endowed chair in Canada in Holocaust hist ...

(b. 1960), a Canadian academic and Holocaust historian. * Michael Berenbaum (b. 1945), an American scholar and rabbi who specializes in the study of the memorialization of the Holocaust. He served as Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988–1993. *

Alan L. Berger Alan L. Berger (born November 16, 1939) is an American scholar, writer and professor of Judaic Studies and Holocaust studies from the Florida Atlantic University. He occupies the Raddock Family eminent scholar chaired of the Holocaust Studies at ...

(b. 1939), the Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies at Florida Atlantic University, Professor of Jewish Studies at Florida Atlantic University, Director of the Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz, Editor and Author of Interdisciplinary Holocaust Scholarship, Co-Editor of ''Second Generation Voices: Reflections by Children of Holocaust Survivors and Perpetrators'', and Member of the Florida Department of Education Holocaust Education Task Force. *

Christopher Browning Christopher Robert Browning (born May 22, 1944) is an American historian who is the professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). A specialist on the Holocaust, Browning is known for his work documenting ...

(b. 1944), an American historian of the Holocaust who is best known for his work ''Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland'', a study of

German Reserve Police Battalion 101 Reserve Police Battalion 101 (german: Reserve-Polizei-Bataillon 101) was in Nazi Germany a paramilitary formation of the uniformed police force known as Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei'', abbreviated as Orpo), operating under the leadership of th ...

that massacred Jews in Poland. * Lucy Dawidowicz (1915–1990), among the earliest American historians of the Holocaust, whose work, including her book ''The War Against the Jews: 1933–1945'' (1975), investigated the political and social context of the events.Butler, Deidre (1 March 2009).
Holocaust Studies in the United States
. ''Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia''. Jewish Women's Archive. jwa.org. Retrieved 4 October 2017. * Martin Gilbert (1936–2015), a British historian who has published many historical volumes about the Holocaust. *

Alena Hájková Alena Hájková (née Divišová; 11 October 1924 – 2 August 2012) was a Czech Communist resistance fighter and historian. Resistance Alena Divišová was born in 1924 to a working class Prague family in Vršovice. At 14, she left school and we ...

(1924–2012), Czech Communist resistance fighter who became a chief historian on Jews in the Czechoslovak resistance. * Raul Hilberg (1926–2007), an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian who is widely considered to be the world's preeminent Holocaust scholar. *

Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...

(1900–1959), a Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide, which was later adopted by the United Nations in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. *

Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works ...

(1919–1987), an Italian Jewish chemist who survived

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

, and later published over a dozen works. He committed suicide on April 11, 1987. *

Franklin Littell Franklin Hamlin Littell (June 20, 1917 – May 23, 2009) was an American Protestant scholar. He is known for his writings rejecting supersessionism and, in light of the Holocaust, advocated educational programs to improve relations between Ch ...

(1917–2009), a Protestant scholar who is regarded by some as the founder of the field of Holocaust studies. * Peter Longerich (b. 1955), a German professor of history, author and director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and Twentieth-Century History at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

. * Léon Poliakov (1910–1997), a French historian who wrote on the Holocaust and

. *

Laurence Rees Laurence Rees (born 1957) is an English historian. He is a BAFTA winning historical documentary filmmaker and a British Book Award winning author of several books about Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and the atrocities committed, especially by them, ...

(b. 1957), a British historian and documentary filmmaker. *

Gerald Reitlinger Gerald Roberts Reitlinger (born 1900 in London, United Kingdom – died 1978 in St Leonards-on-Sea, United Kingdom) was an art historian, especially of Asian ceramics, and a scholar of historical changes in taste in art and their reflection in ...

(1900–1978), a British art historian who wrote three works after World War II about Nazi Germany. *

Carol Rittner Carol Rittner (born 1943) is an American nun and Holocaust historian. She is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust Studies at Stockton University. Early life Ri ...

(b. 1943), Distinguished Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Stockton University, who co-produced the Academy Award nominated documentary ''

The Courage to Care ''The Courage to Care'' is a 1985 American short documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a his ...

'', and has written a number of important works about the Holocaust and various genocides. *

Richard L. Rubenstein Richard Lowell Rubenstein (January 8, 1924 – May 16, 2021) was a theologian, educator, and writer, noted particularly for his path-breaking contributions to post-Holocaust theology and his socio-political analyses of surplus populations an ...

(1924–2021), an American scholar who is noted for his contributions to

. *

R.J. Rummel Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was an American political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war w ...

(1932–2014), political scientist and Holocaust & Genocide studies expert that coined the term ''

Democide Democide is a term coined by American political scientist Rudolph Rummel to describe "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by special agent, government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government p ...

''; professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and finished his career at the

University of Hawaiʻi The University of Hawaiʻi System, formally the University of Hawaiʻi and popularly known as UH, is a public college and university system that confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through three universities, seven com ...

Education about the Holocaust

Education about the Holocaust or Holocaust education refers to efforts, in formal and non-formal settings, to teach about the Holocaust. Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust (TLH) addresses didactics and learning, under the larger umbrella of education about the Holocaust, which also comprises

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

and textbooks studies. The expression "Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust" is used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Sources

References

External links

Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education
at Florida Atlantic University, Encouraging the Next Generation of Holocaust Researchers
Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

Florida State Commissioner of Education's Task Force on Holocaust Education

Resources for Academics and Research
at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Yad Vashem
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holocaust Research The Holocaust