Is The Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives On Comparative Genocide

by Alan S Rosenbaum (Author), EDITOR * (Editor)

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ISBN-13: 978-0813326429

ISBN-10: 0813326427

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Evaluating the Jewish Holocaust is by no means a simple matter, and one of the most controversial questions for academics is whether there have been any historical parallels for it. Have Armenians, Gypsies, American Indians, or others undergone a comparable genocide? In this fiercely controversial volume, distinguished scholars offer new discussions of this question. Presenting a wide range of strongly held views, they provide no easy consensus.Some critics contend that if the Holocaust is seen as fundamentally different in kind from other genocides or mass deaths, the suffering of other persecuted groups will be diminished. Others argue that denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust will trivialize it. Alan Rosenbaum's introduction provides a much-needed context for readers to come to terms with this multi-dimensional dispute, to help them understand why it has recently intensified, and to enable them to appreciate what universal lessons might be gleaned from studying the Holocaust.This volume makes an important contribution to our comprehension of one of the defining events of modern history. It should be essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the Holocaust and its relationship to other instances of politically inspired mass murder.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Is the Holocaust Unique? is firmly established as a classic of Holocaust and genocide studies. This third edition, with its wealth of new essays and insights, is the richest and most provocative yet.”
—Adam Jones, University of British Columbia Okanagan, author of Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction

“Professor Rosenbaum has masterfully edited a landmark in this comprehensive, well-balanced, and compassionate study of the most systematic attempt at annihilating an entire race in the history of humankind. Seen in light of a current trend toward justice violations—from torture and extraordinary rendition to ‘preemptive’ war—the chapters of this volume may be potent reminders of just how violable the line is between sanity and savagery.”
—Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., Editor, International Journal of Applied Philosophy

“With no dearth of ongoing challenges to human rights around the world, including the continued conflicts in Africa and renewed attention on global legal issues such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, the general theme of the book is as timely as ever. … This volume is intended to provide food for thought and provoke ongoing inquiry into questions of comparative genocide. It surely does.”
—Cleveland Jewish News

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

Some critics contend that if the Holocaust is seen as fundamentally different in kind from other genocides or mass deaths, the suffering of other persecuted groups will be diminished. Others argue that denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust will trivialize it. Alan Rosenbaum's introduction provides a much needed context for readers to come to terms with this multidimensional dispute, to help them understand why it has recently intensified, and to enable them to appreciate what universal lessons might be gleaned from studying the Holocaust.

This volume makes an important contribution to our comprehension of one of the defining events of modern history. It should be essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the Holocaust and its relationship to other instances of politically inspired mass murder. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Westview Press (February 6, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0813326427
ISBN-13: 978-0813326429
Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,474,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4042 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Religious Studies > Judaism
- #6909 in Books > History > World > Religious > Judaism
- #8472 in Books > History > World > Jewish > Holocaust

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If this is as good as it gets, it is a sad state of affairs

ByJ. Adamson March 10, 2005

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Having been fascinated by this subject since my first visit to Dachau in the 60's I thought this book would be a compilation of the "best and the brightest" but I was very wrong. There are a couple decent sections written by some fairly good academics, but some of them, especially the chapter written by Barbara Green, are just plain ridiculous in their analysis and conclusions. Her conclusion that Stalin's murder of millions of Ukrainians was not "genocide" is just silly. Not only that, her reading list is very incomplete in that it did not include eye witness accounts of how systematic the death sentence of starvation was actually carried out. The chapter by Stannard which compares the settlement of the USA over several centuries in an era long gone with Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews and Gypsies is ludicrous. While he may make some interesting arguments, he ignores the reality of the cultures existing in the "New World" where human sacrifice was rampant, slavery and war-making were the norm, long before the Europeans showed up. Not a word about that in his analysis. He also equates the massive deaths of Indians by infectious diseases brought to the new world with the deaths in the Nazi concentration camps, which would mean that the AIDS epidemic which started in Africa makes all Africans the biggest perpetrators of genocidal death in the history of mankind according to his logic.

While this book is one of hundreds on the topic, it is not one that is worth the investment of time or money if you are interested in the subject.

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An excellent discussion about a pseudo-issue

ByMariusz T. Wesolowskion February 19, 2000

Format: Paperback

To any person who has the ability of thinking in a more or less logical fashion, the statement that the Nazi holocaust of the Jews was "unique" is simply absurd. The politically motivated proponents of this concept not only confuse "unique" with "different", but also do so for morally suspicious reasons. This book reflects the current state of the debate; especially important is the essay by David E. Stannard ("Uniqueness as Denial: The Politics of Genocide Scholarship") in which he totally demolishes all pro-uniqueness arguments, and the foreword by Israel S. Charny where he discusses various data-doctoring attempts by the writers presented in the volume. All in all, "Is the Holocaust Unique?" should be required reading in any Holocaust studies curriculum.

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Welcome to the real world, Neo

ByAshtar Commandon October 19, 2006

Format: Paperback

"Is the Holocaust unique" is a controversial book, first published in 1995. This is the second edition, but the book is presumably as controversial as ever. "Is the Holocaust unique" is an anthology edited by Alan Rosenbaum with a foreword by Israel Charny. It contains contributions from both opponents and proponents of the idea that the Holocaust is unique. However, the opponents predominate. In effect, then, the book argues that the Holocaust wasn't unique, but one in a series of gruesome genocides in history.

The most important contribution to this book is David E. Stannards spirited article "The Politics of Genocide Scholarship". Stannard points out that every argument of the proponents of Holocaust uniqueness is either inherently contradictory, or applies equally well to other genocides. Those who believe that the Holocaust was unique, claim that its the only instance in history when an entire people was intentionally targeted for extermination for purely ideological reasons, despite not being a military or political threat, with the support of a centralized state apparatus and high-tech killing facilities. Stannard points out that there are many extermination orders directed against specific American Indian nations, that Gypsies were targeted by the Third Reich for ideological reasons, that Jews occasionally did constitute a threat to Nazism, and that some Jews were exempted from being killed, showing that the Nazi evil was pragmatic rather than metaphysically cosmic. Other recommended contributions include "Responses to the Porrajmos: The Romani Holocaust" by Ian Hancock, "Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide" by Barbara B. Green, and "The Holocaust and the Japanese Atrocities" by Kinue Tokudome.

When I first read this book, I regarded it as really bad. At the time, I was toying with the idea that the Holocaust was indeed unique. Re-reading some of the contributions a few months later, I changed my mind completely. Of course the Holocaust isn't unique. Unfortunately! World history is a scandalous chronicle of wars and genocides. The Holocaust was indeed "unique" in some ways, but so was every other genocide in their way. Yet, they are all genocides, all holocausts if you wish, and any attempt to claim that the Jewish Holocaust was unique in some fundamental, qualitative sense is untenable. It can only be based on some kind of religious reasoning: if the Jews are indeed God's chosen people, then their sufferings through out history simply must be of a different order than the suffering of Gentiles. The idea that the Holocaust was unique is often coupled with the claim that it was incomprehensible. This makes it impossible to analyze the Holocaust by regular methods of historical research, and hence once again makes a purely religious explanation necessary. But even that is often found wanting. After all, why would a good God permit the Holocaust?

I know that anti-Semites often take advantage of the non-unique character of the Holocaust to downplay Jewish suffering altogether. But, unfortunately, Jews do the same to victims of other genocides. For some reasons, Jews seem to resent Armenians in particular. Perhaps the Israeli-Turkish alliance has something to do with it. Or perhaps the Jews fear competition. After all, being Armenian is just as intimately connected with the Turkish genocide of Armenians during World War One, as being Jewish is with the Holocaust during World War Two. But what kind of bizarre competition is this?! If the Holocaust actually was unique, then logically it was morally worse than genocides-as-usual. Thus, the extermination of the Tasmanians, the Armenian experience, Nazi atrocities against Gypsies or Byelorussians, or the mutual Hutu-Tutsi massacres in Rwanda, are seen as somehow less important, than the Jews killed during World War Two. Such a mindset hardly promotes sensitivity. Some defenders of Israel even reason like this: "Since Jews went through a unique experience of genocide, Israel have a unique right to attack Lebanon". Such arguments were heard in 1982, and presumably again today.

In my opinion, it would actually be a good thing if the Holocaust was unique. Ironically, those who claim that it was unique risk downplaying the evil inherent in human history. The fact that constant holocausts are business-as-usual shows what a wail of tears the human existence has been for the past 10,000 years or so. The fact that Auschwitz can be given a "normal" or "rational" explanation doesn't downplay human evil either. Quite the contrary. If evil is a temporary irrational outburst, or something only directed at Jews, it could presumably be lived through, contained or avoided (at least if you're not Jewish). But what if evil is a product of "normal" and "rational" workings of political ideology, state bureaucracy or the needs of a regular war effort? In other words, what if evil is banal, like a grey office clerk signing death warrants, rather than dramatic, like the Führer screaming forth a speech? Doesn't this actually make evil EVEN WORSE, even more demonic? Perhaps the idea that the Holocaust was completely unique give some people a kind of strange psychological solace, since at least the rest of the world, while bad perhaps, isn't completely dark.

Welcome to the real world, Neo.

It's also curious that defenders of Israel's right to exist couple this with the claim that the Holocaust was unique. The Zionist movement was founded long before the Holocaust. Note also the strange flip side of this idea: if Israel has the right to exist because the Holocaust was unique, does that mean Armenia doesn't have a right to exist, since the Armenian genocide wasn't unique? Does Turkey or Russia have a right to swallow Armenia, perhaps?