ABSTRACT
The Nazis intended to destroy all Jews. That aim was neither restricted to specific territory nor based primarily on what Jews had done. Instead, the Nazis' apocalyptic ideology defined Jews to be so inferior racially, so threatening, that their existence had to be eliminated root and branch. Historical study presupposes values that are not contained in historical study alone. Intentionally or unintentionally, it functions in ways that affect the present the and the future. As the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel so often suggests, we remember not only for the dead but perhaps even more for the living. Any debate about the Holocaust's uniqueness or about the relation of the Holocaust to other genocides is worthwhile just to the extent that it never loses sight of the fact that ethical reasons are the most important ones for studying the dark chapters in human history.
