“Another Holocaust”: An Analogy and Its Discontents

• In Event: New Perspectives in Holocaust Studies

Abstract

Comparisons of other phenomena to the Holocaust abound, even as its uniqueness is frequently asserted. Though some observers regularly decry making these analogies, their wide-ranging productivity is a consequence of Holocaust remembrance—indeed, the generation of these analogies and the responses they engender can be considered Holocaust memory practices in their own right. This paper examines both the power and the limitations of these analogies as well as what they reveal about the consequences of Holocaust remembrance. After discussing briefly the conceptualization of the Holocaust as both an anomaly and a paradigm (e.g., Raphael Lemkin’s coining of the term “genocide”; the implications of the Yiddish term “(LETSTER) KHURBN” and the slogan “EYN OD / Never again”), this paper will outline a typology of Holocaust analogies:
• Earlier genocides/atrocities (e.g., African American slavery, American Indian massacres, the mass murder of Armenians)
• More recent genocides (e.g., in the Balkans, Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda)
• Other atrocities (e.g., abuse of animals, AIDS, environmental destruction, gentrification, nuclear arms race, war on drugs, world hunger)
• Bilateral analogies—i.e., in which each side of an issue or phenomenon invokes the Holocaust to denounce the other (e.g., abortion rights, American immigration policy, Iraq war, Israel/Palestine conflict, Trump presidency, Vietnam war)
• Analogy as riposte (e.g., haredi protests against the Israeli government, Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest, Mizrahi denunciation of “ashkenatsim”)
• Comic analogies (e.g., Curb Your Enthusiasm’s “survivor” episode, Seinfeld’s “soup Nazi”)
This typology initiates an analysis of the larger practice of making Holocaust analogies, considering their range of underlying assumptions about both the Holocaust and the power of its remembrance, the means of implementing these analogies, and the debates they engender. The analysis will address larger implications of how the Holocaust is variously understood as a defining event for Jews —whether as a singular event, a culmination of Jewish historical experience, or a human rights exemplum—as reflected in their making and reacting to these comparisons.

Author

• Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University