The Holocaust: An Unfinished History (Pelican Books)

by Dan Stone

Organizations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust have the ear of politicians, who then promote Holocaust education and commemoration. There are Holocaust museums not just in the US, UK, Israel and Australia, but also in Norway, Macedonia, Brazil, Uruguay and even the West Bank. Holocaust films, graphic novels, plays, documentaries, websites and Holocaust imagery are ubiquitous. Surely, one might think, Holocaust consciousness has done its job? And yet. We live in an age of increasing nationalism, right-wing populism and xenophobia, all of which are pressing hard against the mainstream acceptance of international cooperation and multiculturalism that have characterized, however partially and imperfectly, the postwar Western world. How else do we explain the elections of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, the vote for Brexit, the election of a radical-right component to the Austrian and Italian governments, the success of self-styled illiberal democracy in Hungary and Poland, or the rise of radical-right movements? We are seeing these movements not just in countries such as Greece, which have only recently ‘discovered’ their role in the Holocaust, but also in Germany, with the Alternative für Deutschland, Spain, with Vox, and France, with the National Rally (formerly the National Front), and in countries with longstanding and deep commitments to Holocaust education and commemoration such as the US, the UK and Germany. In countries such as Austria, Hungary and Poland, rece...

The fact is that Holocaust education goes out of the window if people feel that their life chances are narrowing. We often get it the wrong way around: the answer to increasing levels of hatred is not more Holocaust education, for that is asking education to do more than it can provide. Rather, if we want Holocaust education to prove effective, we have first to build a society that desires equality and tolerance, and in which the values promoted by Holocaust education chime with the values of society at large.