Antisemitism explains who was killed, not why genocide happened

Evidence

Hannah Arendt pointed out a long time ago that, in the phenomenon of the Holocaust, antisemitism may explain at most the choice of the victims, but not the nature of the crime. Nothing has happened since then to invalidate Arendt’s verdict, while the monumental memoirs of Primo Levi, the monumental historical research of Raoul Hilberg and the monumental documentary of Claude Lanzmann, to mention but a few landmarks, did a lot to confirm and reinforce it. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 703 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Holocaust death rates tracked Nazi control, not local antisemitism levels. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 512; Pre-existing antisemitism alone cannot explain perpetrators’ immediate comfort with atrocity — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 336; The Holocaust’s difference from prior Jew-hatred lies in the crime itself, not the victims (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Antisemitism history explains the victims, not the Holocaust’s criminal nature. #corroborates (0.98)
• Antisemitism explains victim selection, not the crime’s nature #corroborates (0.97) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 703