The Impact of the Holocaust

The Holocaust has become a cultural code for the deadly combination of ideology with the technology, modernism, bureaucracy, and expertise to implement evil. The central role of Jews in Christianity turned the Holocaust into a virtual Christian suicide, and the Holocaust represents a global attack on Western civilization itself. The continuance of antisemitism and also the continuance of other forms of hatred leading, potentially, to genocide, often under the auspices of (semi-) governmental authority, underscore the centrality of genocide as a threat to civilization. The role of ideology is central in this threat, yet careful distinctions must be made: the destruction of Jews had a different ideological basis from that of the Nazi murders of other victims. Future prevention of genocide depends on careful analysis and on comparisons that are not hastily drawn. It is the responsibility of universities to provide an institutional framework for such analysis if the future prevention of genocide is to take root.