Is the Holocaust a Unique Historical Event? A Debate between Two Pillars of Holocaust Research and its Impact on the Study of Antisemitism

Abstract

compared with any other historical or with other attempts at contemporary outbreaks of mass killing. similar foundations … in other attempts at genocide, only in the Nazi attempt to murder the Jewish people, based on Nazi ideology, do we find these features playing a central, exclu-sive, and unadulterated role.Therefore, even if the Holocaust can be placed on a continuum of the execution of such plans, it is located at the end of the continuum, as the complete embodiment of the meaning of the concept of genocide — in terms of ideology, planning and execution — and must therefore also be characterized as exceptional and unique within it.²² of the generation of Holocaust survivors, beyond all evil be from against the backdrop of the People s of calamity.³