A Bit of Holocaust Historiography

I am at work on an essay in historiography; specifically, the history of the development of historians' (and the publics) views of the Holocaust. My goal is a publishable essay on the subject, although who would publish such a thing from me I have no idea.

Anyway, in the course of the research I have learned a bit about Gerald Reitlinger, who was known as an art historian in the '30s and during the war, but who in In regard to the Holocaust, came out unexpectedly with THE FINAL SOLUTION (1952).

One of Reitlinger’s many contributions here was to bring the matter of the Warsaw ghetto uprising squarely into the frame. This rather markedly runs against the denial of individual agency in many accounts of the Holocaust. The historians tend to give us banal commandants and passive Jewish victims, and open rebellion by the not-so-passive victims, where it occurs, is "not my department," like where the rockets come down.

Jews like Merek Edelman chose not to be passive victims but instead (in Edelman’s words,”to pick the time of our deaths.” Precisely for this reason, it is important to bring them into the story today, whatever one’s Big Picture of the Holocaust. And to Reitlinger one owes some credit for that.

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