
Historical Distance and the Holocaust
Interactions Between Historians and Middle-Class Western Europeans in Memory Education
Thomas Van de Putte(Author)
Pallas Publications (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 31. July 2026
Book
Hardback
180 pages
978-90-485-7321-9 (ISBN)
Description
What happens when Holocaust historians leave their academic bubble and start interacting with laypeople? This book investigates practices and discourses of historical distance and their effects on vernacular understandings of the Holocaust among white, middle-class Europeans. In five chapters, Historical Distance and the Holocaust describes and explains how historians, in interactions with laypeople, strip the Holocaust of its moral meaning and emotional load, narrate it as a 'system', and use sick Holocaust humour as distancing strategy.
A detailed interactional analysis and thick ethnographic description demonstrate how the temporal, moral and emotional distancing practices reenforce the lay moralities and political subjectivities of the white middle-class. This comes with (mostly unintended) consequences. Distanced approaches to the Holocaust in non-academic environments reduce empathy for victims and survivors, normalize violence, disconnect the meaning of the Holocaust from contemporary conflict, and re-activate stereotypes about groups who employ more 'close' approaches to the Holocaust.
A detailed interactional analysis and thick ethnographic description demonstrate how the temporal, moral and emotional distancing practices reenforce the lay moralities and political subjectivities of the white middle-class. This comes with (mostly unintended) consequences. Distanced approaches to the Holocaust in non-academic environments reduce empathy for victims and survivors, normalize violence, disconnect the meaning of the Holocaust from contemporary conflict, and re-activate stereotypes about groups who employ more 'close' approaches to the Holocaust.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academic
Illustrations
1 farbige Abbildung
1 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-90-485-7321-9 (9789048573219)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Thomas Van de Putte is assistant professor in Sociology at the University of Trento. He works on questions of collective Holocaust memory, combining perspectives from sociology, linguistics and cultural studies. He published his first monograph, Contemporary Auschwitz/ Oswiecim, in 2021, and his second monograph, Outsourcing the European Past, in 2024.
Content
Acknowledgements Introduction. Distance and the Holocaust: Four Strategies. Chapter 1: A Morally Meaningless Holocaust Chapter 2: Holocaust Memory without Emotions Chapter 3: Narrating the Holocaust as System: Getting Rid of Actors and Experiences. Chapter 4: Distancing the Holocaust with Sick Humour Conclusion Bibliography Index