Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Philosophy & Public Affairs
Angaben zur Quelle:
25,1 (1996) 65-83
Keywords:
National socialism Psychological aspects
;
Racism History 1933-1945
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Philosophy
;
Antisemitism History 1933-1945
Abstract:
Argues that what is unique about the Holocaust is its particular fusion of collective humiliation and mass destruction, based on the Nazis' unique racial conception of the Jews as questionably human - i.e. it is not the process of destruction nor the fact that it happened to the Jews which makes the Holocaust unique, but rather the ideological motives of the Nazi perpetrators. Discusses Nazi racial ideology, the view of the Jews as not belonging to the human race, and the important function of the humiliation of the Jews in the destruction process. Humiliation denied the Jews' humanity and helped exorcise the Nazis' own self-humiliation and contamination due to their murderous acts. The fear of self-humiliation may explain why the Nazis transported Jews across Europe in order to murder them and why relatively few Germans worked in the extermination camps. Humiliating others has traditionally involved the perpetrator in a primary relation with his victim. The Nazis sought to humiliate the Jews while remaining detached. The postwar effect of the Holocaust has been to render German history into a unique pariah history, while rendering the Jews' membership in a common humanity unquestionable. It has also affected postwar culture in regard to questions of history and memory.
Note:
A German version appeared as "Die Einzigartigkeit des Holocaust" in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie" 45,1 (1997) 3-18.
URL:
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