The Holocaust’s difference from prior Jew-hatred lies in the crime itself, not the victims

Evidence

This interpretation overlooks the essential discontinuity between even the most violent outbursts of premodern Judeophobia and the meticulously planned and executed operation called the Holocaust. It also glosses over the fact that - as Hannah Arendt pointed out long ago - only the choice of victims, not the nature of the crime, can be derived (if at all) from the history of antisemitism; indeed, it replaces the crucial issues of the nature of crime with the question of the unique features of Jews or Jewish-Gentile relations. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 369 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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; Antisemitism history explains the victims, not the Holocaust’s criminal nature.; Antisemitism explains victim selection, not the crime’s nature — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 703 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Only the choice of victims, not the crime’s nature, derives from antisemitism history. #corroborates (0.97) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 369
• Antisemitism history explains the victims, not the Holocaust’s criminal nature. #corroborates (0.96)
• Antisemitism explains victim selection, not the crime’s nature #corroborates (0.95) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 703
• Antisemitism explains who was killed, not why genocide happened #corroborates (0.95)
• Holocaust uniqueness claims position all other genocides as marginal by comparison #complicates (0.76) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 272
• The Holocaust should not define what antisemitism across history looks like #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 517
• Explaining the Holocaust via sadistic hatred obscures its most sinister truth #complicates (0.74)
• Comparative genocide research makes the Holocaust appear less exceptional #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 516