The Dispersed Holocaust

Pluralising Research on the Violent Past in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Holocaust research and commemoration has a certain tendency to focus on concentrated forms of violence (ghettos and camps), while often overlooking the equally devastating Holocaust by bullets in Eastern Europe. Growing research on that chapter of the Holocaust points to the fact that this decentralised genocide, involving mass shootings, claimed a similar number of Jewish victims but has received less attention due to many geopolitical, empirical, and cognitive barriers. The concept of a “dispersed Holocaust”, which refers to phenomena even broader than the Holocaust by bullets, highlights the widespread nature of wartime atrocities, including the murders of Jews fleeing transports, hiding after ghetto liquidations, being targeted during the Judenjagd (“hunt for Jews”) in the “third phase of the Holocaust”, or dying on the roadside during death marches. These killings differ from concentrated ones as they more often occurred publicly or were otherwise observed, implicating high numbers of members of the military and local communities as perpetrators, witnesses, or collaborators who thus shared knowledge of this genocide. Today, many killing sites remain uncommemorated or forgotten, posing challenges to local and national memory cultures. Reframing the Holocaust as a dispersed and plural phenomenon emphasises regional variations of violence, which also reveals its cooccurrence with other forms of murder or genocide. This pluralistic approach offers opportunities to promote more inclusive memory cultures, challenge exclusionary narratives, and counter “memory competition” or “memory wars” that rely on monolithic understandings of the past. It may also shed more light on the diverse forms of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Recognising the dispersed Holocaust is equally challenging as its centralised form will enrich both scholarly understanding and commemorative practices, offering a more comprehensive view of this genocide’s diverse manifestations.