Constructing The Holocaust Summary

Dan Stone’s Constructing the Holocaust: A Study in Historiography is divided into two parts. The first is an overview of the Holocaust and covers the way in which the narratives of the Holocaust have been formed, as well as tracing the development of literature from publications from just after the war that became the common histories of the Holocaust up to more recent publications; the second examines narrative theory via philosophy and theology, as well as debating the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust in history. The central argument Stone constructs is that the Holocaust “provides both the occasion for, and the ultimate test of, new ways of giving meaning to the past… [and] that examining our representations of the past is as important as archival …show more content…
Beginning in chapter 5 of the book, the case study of the uniqueness of the Holocaust proves to be a compelling subject from the start. Stone opens the chapter with a quote from Yehuda Bauer, who, in short, said that the events of the Holocaust are widely known and explained, but this does not mean that people truly understand the Holocaust and its ramifications. The research and knowledge of the Holocaust has grown continually, though most researchers and authors claim that despite this it is a truly unknowable series of events. Before the Historikersreit, the consensus among academics and historians was that the Holocaust was truly unique. “Uniqueness” is defined in several different ways in this section; from Alan Rosenberg’s assertion that the Holocaust is unique because of the techniques used to eradicate the Jews and other groups targeted by Nazis, to Hermann Graml, who attributes uniqueness to the rare conditions surrounding the Holocaust, to Lucy Dawidowicz’s claim that what sets the Holocaust apart from other genocides with death tolls in the millions is the intent of the murders. These are brief paraphrasings of just a few of the opinions offered in this section. Stone acknowledges that “the difference of the Nazi treatment of the Jews from victims of other genocides is more than historical hyperbole. However, the maintenance of the ‘uniqueness’ hypothesis certainly has unwanted ramification for historical …show more content…
I had never thought that the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust would be disputed, and I did not realize that I had considered it as a separate history outside of history. By this I mean that the Holocaust has always been presented as a series of events that’s importance exists outside the normal progression of historical narratives. One learns in school about World War I and the precursors to World War II, the events of the war, the politics, and the outcomes, but the Holocaust—to my experience— is taught separately in its own unit. This gives it the feel of being a subject that is “other,” and that exists on its own, despite knowing what its causes were. I had never given pause to think about the uniqueness of the Holocaust, though only because of the way it was presented and the atrocities committed. If genocide had occurred before and still occurs after, and so had antisemitism and discrimination against other groups attacked, what really makes the Holocaust special? This question was debated in the uniqueness section, and I found that I agreed with Dawidowicz and Graml, as their assertions claimed the Holocaust is unique in the rare circumstances surrounding it and in the intent of the murders. Furthermore, the section discusses the inconsistency of attempting to define uniqueness. Not just different definitions are discussed, but how many individuals who have written about this topic contradict