The Journal of Genocide Research Featured Still Another Minimization of the Holocaust

Response to a review of two books on the Holocaust and why the Jews were singled out for extermination by Amos Goldberg, Helmut Walser Smith, Simone Gigliotti, Marc Buggein, and Alan Confino, in “Book Forum,” Journal of Genocide Research (2016). 1 The two books reviewed are by Alan Confino, Foundational Pasts: The Holocaust as Historical Understanding , 2012, and A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide , 2014. 2 The Journal of Genocide Research came under scrutiny in two research studies of readers who are genocide professionals (N=67) and a smaller number of students of Holocaust and Genocide courses (N=39), together N=106. These studies evoked considerable controversy. The present review essay is in response to a subsequent multi-author review in the book forum of the Journal of Genocide Research of two books on the Holocaust, in which both the review essay and the books under discussion are shown to be strong minimizations of the significance of the Holocaust: The thesis advanced is that the extermination of the Jews was not a product of ancient antisemitism-hatred of Jews, but a function of the Nazi vision of creating a new world. Keywords:  minimization of the Holocaust, antisemitism, denials of genocide, integrity of genocide studies, laws against incitement of violence, Wannsee Conference, Final Solution