scholarly conference
'The Future of Holocaust Research'
Tim Corbett
The participants included leading scholars in the fields of Holocaust and genocide studies from across North America, Europe, and Israel. The conference, which was open to the public, was sponsored by a range of international organizations. The aim of the conference was to foment discussion into the current state of the field of Holocaust research, its relevance now in the early twenty-first century, and the outlook for the field and its global relevance, not only to research, but also politically and mnemonically in the coming years and decades.
The salience of a conference focusing on the present and future trajectory of Holocaust research seems self-evident: over 70 years have passed since the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps, and the generation for whom these events form part of their living memory is inevitably fading away. The Holocaust is fast becoming an abstracted item of historical memory, mediated through school curricula, public memorial events and institutions, and cultural media, all of which offer only a second- or third-hand entry into this darkest chapter of the twentieth century. This necessarily raises questions on the implication not only for Holocaust research, but also for its dissemination and relevance as we progress through a new century with its own challenges, upheavals, and atrocities.
A central concern raised by a number of speakers, including Chase Robinson, President of the CUNY Graduate Center, in hi opening remarks, revolved around recent claims that the younger generation knows increasingly little – sometimes frighteningly little – about the Holocaust. These concerns go back, amongst other things, to recent reports following a study conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in February 2018, widely reported in American and international media around Yom HaShoah in April, which found that two-thirds of American millennials surveyed could not identify what Auschwitz was, while 22 percent of millennials said they had not heard of the Holocaust or were not sure whether they had heard of it.
Coupled with this concern was the issue raised throughout the successive panels of the conference concerning the populist turn in Europe and North America in recent years and the impact this has not only on Holocaust research and remembrance, but also on the normalization of revisionist narratives, even denial, of the Holocaust and of the actions of various peoples and nations, especially but not exclusively Germany, during World War II. These trends toward the fading from memory of the Holocaust as a real historical occurrence, coupled with the appropriation and even subversion of its memory for nefarious political ends in the present day, are indeed a cause for concern.
On April 25-26 2018, the City University of New York – Graduate Center and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust co-presented the international scholarly conference 'The Future of Holocaust Research' in New York City.