ABSTRACT
Holocaust studies invite inquiry about both senses of “What’s it for?” How does that field of inquiry work? What happens within it? Who are its investigators and practitioners? This chapter studies the Holocaust because it happened, but ethical reasons govern that work. Controversy has swirled around which descriptive words are best to distinguish the Holocaust from other mass atrocity crimes, but, however debates play out, the fundamental importance of the Holocaust remains. Especially when studies about the Holocaust are successful, Hilberg warned, a mistaken belief should be exposed and corrected: namely, the assumption that in such research one “will find the true ultimate Holocaust as it really happened.” If that claim is valid, the proof depends on the degree to which Holocaust studies and education advance, in Bloomfield’s words, “critical thinking about how and why the Holocaust happened, and what made it possible.”.
