The Holocaust
Remembrance and historiography

In the decades after the war, Holocaust memory was largely confined to the survivors and their communities. The popularity of Holocaust memory peaked in the 1990s after the fall of Communism, and became central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil. Genocide scholar A. Dirk Moses asserted that "the Holocaust has gradually supplanted genocide as modernity's icon of evil", while political scientist Scott Straus declared that "the Holocaust, perhaps more than any other event in the past century, represents the pinnacle of evil". The Holocaust has been described as "perhaps the most savage and significant single crime in recorded history" and that of the most barbaric events in the twentieth century "the Holocaust probably ranks as the very worst". Renowned German historian Wolfgang Benz described it as the "singularly most monstrous crime committed in the history of mankind". Holocaust education, in which its advocates argue promotes citizenship while reducing prejudice generally, became widespread at the same time. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated each year on 27 January, while some other countries have set a different memorial day. It has been commemorated in memorials, museums, and speeches, as well as works of culture such as novels, poems, films, and plays. Denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offense in some countries; while denials of the Holocaust have been promoted by various Middle Eastern governments, figures and media.

Although many are convinced that there are lessons or some kind of redemptive meaning to be drawn from the Holocaust, whether this is the case and what these lessons are is disputed. Communist states marginalized the topic of antisemitic persecution while eliding their nationals' collaboration with Nazism, a tendency that continued into the post-communist era. In West Germany, a self-critical memory of the Holocaust developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and spread to some other western European countries. The national memories of the Holocaust were extended to the European Union as a whole, in which Holocaust memory has provided both shared history and an emotional rationale for committing to human rights. Participation in this memory is required of countries seeking entry. In contrast to Europe, in the United States the memory of the Holocaust tends to be more abstract and universalized. During Apartheid, the Holocaust was evoked widely and divergently, by Jews and non-Jews alike. Whether Holocaust memory actually promotes human rights is disputed. In Israel, the memory of the Holocaust has been used at times to justify the use of force and violation of international human rights norms, in particular as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

The Holocaust is the most well-known genocide in history, and is considered to be the single most infamous case of genocide in European history as well. It is the single most documented and studied genocide in history. It is also seen as the archetype of genocide and the benchmark in genocide studies.

The scholarly literature on the Holocaust is massive, encompassing thousands of books. The tendency to see the Holocaust as a unique or incomprehensible event continues to be popular among the broader public after being largely rejected by historians. Scholar Omer Bartov points out how the Holocaust was unique in that it was "the industrial killing of millions of human beings in factories of death, ordered by a modern state, organized by a conscientious bureaucracy, and supported by a law-abiding, patriotic "civilized" society." Another debate concerns whether the Holocaust emerged from Western civilization or was an aberration of it.

The Jewish population still remains below pre-Holocaust levels. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel, the world Jewish population reached 15.2 million by the end of 2020 – approximately 1.4 million less than on the eve of the Holocaust in 1939, when the number was 16.6 million.
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