The religious challenges of linking Holocaust memory with colonial violence

In recent decades, a body of scholarly literature on the links between the Holocaust and colonialism has grown. In this chapter, I provide an introduction to these historical debates and the religious challenges they prompt. On the one hand, they foreground the Holocaust’s place in Jewish religious history as a unique event—an outlook associated with the influential Elie Wiesel. On the other hand, highlighting intersections between the Holocaust and colonial violence also poses challenges for Christianity. Having faced questions about the role of churches during the Nazi period and anti-Jewish sentiment across preceding centuries, bringing colonialism into the equation adds an additional layer of critique, given the significant involvement of Christianity in European imperialism.