Making Sense of Hell: Three Meditations on the Holocaust

This essay is an inquiry into the epistemology of the holocaust. It contests organic explanations of the event in favour of an interpretative pluralism. Different questions are seen as demanding different forms of inquiry: what made the holocaust possible requires a political analysis, the issue of its uniqueness calls for a sociological perspective, while an anthropological approach is necessary in order to illuminate its enduring symbolic significance. The essay will deal with these matters in an innovative manner. Thus, in concert with one another these three meditations will provide a new constellation for viewing the holocaust even as they confront certain prevailing prejudices and assumptions.