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Comparative Genocide Studiesand the Future Directions ofHolocaust ResearchHenry R. Huttenbach aa Department of History , The. City College of NewYork , 138th Street and Convent Avenue, New York,NY, 10031, USAPublished online: 20 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Henry R. Huttenbach (1998) Comparative Genocide Studies andthe Future Directions of Holocaust Research, The Reference Librarian, 29:61-62,89-97, DOI: 10.1300/J120v29n61_11

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Comparative Genocide Studies and the Future Directions of Holocaust Research:

An Exploration Henry R. Huttenbach

Initially, Holocaust research had to be mi generis. Questions posed by scholars originated from the topic itself. From the moment of confrontation with the event, a tidal wave of problems and dilem- mas arose to face those seeking to comprehend the Final Solution and its far-reaching impact. There was no need to refer to other incidents of genocide (assuming there were any of this dimension) to generate research guidelines and establish a prioritized list of themes. This momentum of Holocaust-inspired research ideas and projects continued well into the late '70s and early '80s when the study of the ~ o l o c a u s t began to lose intellectual vitality. An ele- ment of dkja vu began to creep into Holocaust scholarship.

The symptoms of this malaise was a certain artificiality reflected in the titles of monographs and articles; instead of probing broad questions, scholarship became increasingly micro-focused and mac- ro-irrelevant, over-specialized, often leading to a conceptual cul-de- sac. Instead of raising vitally new questions, Holocaust scholarship

Henry R. Huttenbach is affiliated with the Dcpart~nent o f History, Thg City College of New York, 138th Street and Convent Avenue. New York, NY 10031.

[Haworth co-indexing ently note]: "Coinpantive Genocide Studies and the Future Directions of Holocnusl Resenrch: An Exploralian." Hultenbach. Henry R. Co-published simultaneously in The Re~re~ rce L i h w i m (The I.lawortl Press, Inc.) No. 61/62, 1998. pp. 89-97; and: The Holoco~~sr: hk,r,ories. Rcsenrch. Refe./e,.et,ce (ed: Robert Hauplman, nnd Swan Hubbs Molin) T l ~ c Hnwortli Press. Inc.. 1998, pp. 89-97. Single or lnulliple copies o f this article ale available for a fee h ~ n The Hnwonh Uocu~nent Delivery Service [I-800-342-9678, 9:W n.111. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: gelinfo@liawortli.cotn].

O 1998 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 89

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90 THE HOLOCAUST: MEMORIES, RESEARCH, REFERENCE

tended to veer towards the circular-posing the same (now tiresome) questions and, worse, betraying signs of a theoretical fatigue. In recent years, Holocaust research, still dependent on self-generated horizons, has proven to be increasingly barren, suffering from a form of academic sclerosis, despite the inhsion of significant amounts of new materials, thanks largely to the opening of ex-com- munist archives throughout Eastern Europe. These documents, however, have tended to confirm, corroborate, or modify past re- search rather than force radical revisions and introduce unexpected, new avenues of inquiry, much to most scholars' understandable disappointment.

Fortunately and fortuitously, since the mid-'70s, a sizable litera- ture on genocide and other related fields (i.e., ethnonationalism) has begun to repair what had become an egregious imbalance, an over- focus on the Holocaust and a neglect of other genocidal events. Past genocides, such as the Armenian tragedy, have at last attracted considerable scholarly attention and, necessarily, opened up the possibility of legitimate comparisons, in hopes of determining both areas of fundamental commonality and of significant difference(s). In the case of the Armenian tragedy, that meant establishing the specificity of each incident of genocide, though it and the Holocaust were separated, in this case, by geography and one generation. Since then, other genocides (such as that of the Ache Indians in Paraguay)' have been examined more closely, offering the promise of an even wider field of comparative opportunities, so one can now literally speak of a broad spectrum of genocides, each of which needs to be categorized according to several criteria.' Any future work on the Holocaust, to be academically authentic, will have to include a structural comparative component. Indeed, thanks to the growing need for compa;ison between genocides, a rather complex methodology of comparative genocide has at last become a standard requirement, although it still calls for considerable honing and h e - tuning before one can claim it to be reliable and of a minimal level of respectable sophistication. In this context, new central questions tend to originate from outside the event itself. In short, key ques- tions about the Holocaust have begun to originate increasingly from other genocides. After half a century of Holocaust research, the

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opportunity for cross-fertilization in a context of comparative geno- cide studies has come about.

More recently, the raging inter-ethnic genocides in central Africa between Hutus and Tutsis-originally confined to Rwanda and Bu- rundi and now spread to east Zaire-and those in the ex-Yugoslavia (not just Bosnia!)-have forced the attention of scholars and policy makers on a phenomenon that may continue well into the 21st century. The term "ethnic cleansing," implying a kind of genocide, has potentially radically altered the research agenda of scholars of genocide in general and of the Holocaust in particular.

For one thing, less and less of what is known about the Holocaust helps explain contemporary outbreaks of genocidal violence; on the contrary, as knowledge and understanding of other genocides un- fold, it seems to shed more light on the Holocaust of half a century ago. More pertinent to this essay, the study of other genocides increasingly raises questions not yet posed by scholars of the Holo- caust, challenging some of their fundamental assumptions. To take but one example: a considerable segment of Holocaust research concludes or adopts the conclusion that the Holocaust, i.e., geno- cide, is a by-product of the modem state and its technology; it is the administrative institutions of the state combined with the destmc- tive powers of science that provide the lethal core and instrumental- ity of genocide. Without it, one is led to believe, genocide in its contemporary variant is impossible. And yet, for example, what are we to make of the genocidal slaughter in 1994 in the short span of three months of nearly one million Tutsis by machete-wielding Hutus? No bureaucratic round-ups here; no organized deportations by railroad, no census lists, no gas chambers, no "emptying" ghet- tos by machine gun. Only intense hatred, carehlly nurtured and organized, focused on mass death carried out by pre-industrial means, the r n a ~ h e t e ! ~

A second example of what might be termed a loss of imagination is the oft-repeated mantra-like plaint that the essence of the Holo- caust-the unlimited brutality it unleashed-is "in~omprehensible."~ That is either an emotive way of stressing the depth of cruelty one is made to witness and which transcended the imaginative capacity of the scholar (and even of the survivor) or it is a form of desperate intellectual capitulation, an admission that the Final Solution defies

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92 THE HOLOCAUST: MEMORIES, RESEARCH, REFERENCE

one's ability to understand it. Some in the latter category go one step further and mystify the inner meaning of the Holocaust as an event that hides its real significance, making it intellectually inac- cessible, locating it beyond traditional, rational analysis.

The former is an understandable reaction to the horror of the human capacity to do harm; but that is no proof of mystery. If anything, it tells us more about the person repelled by evil than about the evil itself or the evil doer. At best this is a failure of imagination, at worst a sentimentalized form of psychological es- cape, a defensive mechanism to avoid further exposure to the stark Holocaust reality, the details of the act of genocids-not in its sterile documentary and conceptual forms, but in its unadulterated naked self. The latter is an anti-intellectual stance, an attempt to upgrade an historic event to the level of a metaphysical phenomenon that cannot, by definition, be grasped by reason alone. This is an unten- able dichotomy, a regression to the Romantic notion of the natural and the supra-natural and the pre-Renaissance theocentrism that fought so strenuously against rationalism. Just as one ascribed events to God's intervention into human affairs-be it the outcome of battles or the success or failure of harvests-so, in the case of the Holocaust, one seeks to endow it with meta-human significance instead of treating it as a purely man-willed genocide, indeed a crime that violates international law.

The more one studies other instances of genocide, the temptation to treat them as more than a human act tends to weaken. Seen singly, the individual genocide raises the same seemingly unan- swerable questions: "How was it possible?" and "What on earth does it mean?" Placed alongside other genocides, the "uniqueness" of the isolated event quickly diminishes as basic commonalties are unearthed. The human capacity to carry out extermination becomes less exceptional and more quotidian. There is less need to fall back on emotive solutions and unsustainable irrational conclusions. Seen collectively, genocides automatically demystify themselves and be- come all too human, far less pathological (aberrational) and much more "normal" in the course of human history and in the context of the 20th century. Common sense ultimately forces one to admit that there is nothing about genocide in general and the Holocaust in particular that is immune to satisfactory rational interpretation and

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Purl I I : Research 93

secular explanation. There is nothing about the incidents of ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia-itself a form of genocide-that is beyond the range of a scholar's comprehension: the mass expulsions, the mass rapes, the killing of all males (a form of gendercide), the sadistic brutalities inflicted collectively on prisoners prior to their execution, none of these cannot be accounted for by academic methodologies. After years of self-perpetuated claims by some re- searchers of the Holocaust's ultimate unintelligibility, the pendulum is finally swinging in favor of those who accept its overall compre- hensibility. What still remains not fully understood, they insist, will, eventually, be clarified. It is a matter of patience and persistence as data about genocide accrues and, from it, greater comprehension ensues about the Holocaust.

If the above is logically acceptable, then it follows that much of the future agenda of Holocaust studies will, of necessity, emanate from the study of other genocides. Take the case of antisemitism: built on a long thread of uninterrupted hatred that spawned centu- ries of persecution, this phenomenon of Jew hatred now has a huge literature. In the context of the Holocaust, antisemitism played a central role and, to date, has been examined to a point of exhaus- tion. Luckily, thanks to other genocides driven by other forms of articulated hatred and institutionalized prejudice, antisemitism needs to be seen and compared to these other antipathies that underlay the genocidal victimizations of Armenians, Gypsies and Tutsis. Each is fueled by its own brand of "anti-ism." How do these animosities differ or resemble each other? Future scholarship of antisernitism will increasingly be dictated less by its past than by its more con- temporary counterparts. Much can be learned from anti-Gypsyism and, of course, from any form of racism.

A few studies have already appeared on antisemitism as a form of racism. But they do not yet suffice; too many questions remain. To date, antisemitism as a sub-species of racism has led to an insoluble question, whether the Final Solution was primarily fueled by racism or by antisemitism, a query that, in itself, cannot be answered satisfactorily, if only because the Nazi ideology was si- multaneously militantly racist-propounding the supremacy of Ary- ans-and absolutely antisemitic. Indeed, to be antisemitic in its racist mode the Nazis did not have to be racist supremacists; on their rise

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94 THE HOLOCAUST.. MEMORIES, RESEARCH, REFERENCE

to power they had already inherited racist antisemitism which would have sufficed to launch their extenninist, anti-Jewish cam- paign. It certainly needed no further fortification from any other r ack doctrine.

What really needs to be examined is the origins of the extermina- tionist mentality. Neither antisemitism nor racism alone provide a satisfactory explanation. If genocide and, hence, the Holocaust in particular, are to be better understood, then the roots of annihila- tionismthe origins of ultra-extreme intoleranceneed to be ex- plored, identified, and analyzed. One must ask what external factors encourage the ultimate polarization of antagonism to prompt geno- cidal thought and action. This avenue needs to be followed through to its logical end. The answer certainly does not lie in German or European civilization alone. Given the propensity to eradicate eth- nic minorities in all comers of the earth, the answer lies beyond particular civilizations. Perhaps it lies in certain confluences of critical events-economic, political, social-which trigger into action the genocidal mentality. So far, we do not know the answers beyond informal speculation and conjecture, and possible hypothesis, none of which, so far, can be supported by sufficient hard evidence. Psycho-sociological methodologies not yet fully honed will have to be employed to bring about a systematic unraveling of the puzzle. What precisely quickens the genocidal state of mind-not for a brief moment of reflexive rage-but as a sustained commitment to a social goal, namely, the existential excision of a certain segment of a population? Are there some people with a latent propensity for such behaviour or does the potential lie in everyone?

As the number of genocides after Auschwitz grows, this is of the highest priority for all scholars. Whereas the Holocaust in itself may not provide the answer, it may come from outside itself, from other genocides. If there is to be some progress in human control over the tendency of mass destruction, we must be able to account for the rise to power of the genocidists. This is an imperative, for the scholar, for the politician, and for the general public, which, potentially, can be subjected to a future policy of genocide. Present- ly, very little has been learned about the structural make-up of the world of genocide. There are, as yet, no models, no all-embracing theories.

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Sincc ethnogenocide is on the rise, more and more in the context of inter-ethnic conflict, a high priority must be given to an under- standing of the dynamics of ethnicity and the interplay of inclusive- ness and rejection according to ethnic criteria. How much has the struggle for scarce resources got to do with ethnogenocide? When do economic goals set off the mechanism of genocidal thought? Are there any ideological (religious, etc.) peconditions or predisposi- tions for the genocidal mentality? Is everyone a potential genocid- ist? Or are some persons of a certain cultural make-up more likely to be genocidal if the conditions are right? We still are nowhere near the answers, if only because we lack precision tools.

At this point, scholars simply do not know the answers to these key questions. Nor, indeed, do they yet have dependable methodol- ogies to deal with them professionally. For starters, those accused of genocide need to be thoroughly interviewed and studied in-depth. So far this has not yet ever been the case, if only because the interviewers have lacked the training to travel down the road into the heart of the genocidist's mind and psyche. All one need do to see how woefully unsatisfactory these sessions were is review interrogations of some high Nazi officials and concentration camp guards. Now that they are all dead or mentally too old, the only way to begin research along these lines is to focus on accused and convicted genocidists of other, more recent, instances.

Unfortunately, though understandably, for human and legal rea- sons, the survivors (as witnesses) have been given the greatest attention. But survivors of genocide cannot introduce us to the mind-sets of those who committed genocide. In fact, what survivors have to say about the genocidists is intellectually tangental, in part because, correctly, they throw up their hands in true despair and claim the impossibility of comprehending the psychological and ideological motivations of their tormentors. Through their eyes the Holocaust, as any other genocide, is "incomprehensible." They cannot identify with their killers for they lack the mentality of the killers. The objects of intense future research must be the architects and foot-soldiers of genocide; the pioneering work of Christopher Browning is a mere beginning.

This is where the study of multi-genocide, ci la ex-Yugoslavia, or inter-ethnic genocide, a la RwanddBurundi comes in handy'be-

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96 THE HOLOCAUST: MEMORIES, RESEARCH, REFERENCE

cause, in many cases, some survivors were also genocidists and, vice-versa, genocidists were also survivors. Thus, in thousands of cases among the Hutu refugees who fled Rwanda, one can find this combination genocidist/survivor from whom one can elicit what it is that transforms one into a participant in genocide. Much of this information and insight may, perhaps, be applicable to an under- standing of the genocidists who were engaged in the Final Solution.

All too unhappily, the Holocaust-as it recedes into the past- stands out less as an aberration than as prelude. To be historically accurate one should ascribe that "honor" to the Armenian genocide as the one ushering in the 20th century. That would make the Holo- caust a magnification of its predecessor and less a ground-breaker. None of this lessens the criminality of the Final Solution, but it does contextualize it alongside other genocides before and after. Relating it to past and future genocides gives it more meaning in human history than it would otherwise have standing alone in historic and intellectual isolation. As the 2 1st century approaches and the Holo- caust becomes history, ceasing to be living memory, intellectual enlightenment about it will unavoidably come from an on-going process of comparison with other genocides and near-genocides. Indeed, it would not be wrong to conclude that a brief moratorium be called on Holocaust Studies, allowing its scholars to widen their horizons by familiarizing themselves professionally with other genocides. In so doing, they would unavoidably raise new ques- tions, which they could then transfer over to the Final Solution.

To conclude with an illustration: at present, little more can be said about the Nazi monde concentrationnaire, even by studying the Soviet Gulag (to which it has often been fallaciously compared.) If new avenues are to be found, it is time also to explore the enormous network of prisons erected since 1949 by the People's Republic of China. Here is a world of merciless human torment and destruction in the millions that raises significant questions useful to those still involved with the genocidal functions of the SS complex of camps that they had strung up across Europe. Designed that only a mini- mum of the inmates survive, these Chinese institutions of slow death may hold the answers to several aspects about the Hitlerian and Stalinist systems of incarcerating those the regime deemed unfit

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Part !I: Research 97

to live. Those administering a German or Chinese or Soviet camp may share similar mentalities; if so, what are they?

The future directions of Holocaust research must be towards the comparative, towards contextualization, towards finding for.the Fi- nal Solution its rightful niche in human history, both in Europe as well as in the world, both for this generation as well as for the next. These suggestions may displease those insistent on intractable cen- tralization of the Holocaust. But theirs is an intellectual exaggera- tion and a stance which contains its own danger. Exaggeration is per se distortion, and distortion is a form of falsification. Holocaust studies cannot afford this kind of self-promotion. To retain their credibility, scholars of the Holocaust will have to pay more atten- tion to other genocides as well as to genocide in general. One path leads to trivialization, the other to further enlightenment.

NOTES

I. Richard Arens, ed. Genocide in Paraguay, Temple University Press, 1976 2. Henry R. Huttenbach. "Locating the Holocaust on the Genocide Spectrum:

Towards a Methodology of categorization," Holocarrst and Genocide, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1988) pp. 287-303

3. Henry R. Huttenbach. "Two Lessons from Rwanda," The Genocide Forum I(1994) NO. 3, pp. 3-4

4. Hcnry R. Huttenbach, "Thinking the Unthinkable, Writing the Undescrib- able," The Genocide Forum I1 (1995) No. 2, pp. 1-2

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