Personal engagement and the study of the Holocaust: redressing the missed conversation of the past

Holocaust historiography has produced enormous amounts of factual knowledge; however, prevalent disciplinary norms underscore a historicist vision, influencing the choice historians make regarding sources, modes of interpretation, and forms of representation/emplotment. The contention of leading scholars that the Holocaust represents a problem for conventional representations of the historical past has had limited impact for the actual historical production within this field. How is adopting a particular epistemological position, pursuing a certain kind of scholarship, or embracing a given mode of representation connected to a historian's own relationship to the Holocaust? What are the implications of such stances for the concept of 'historical distance'? This article focuses on the background to a conference organised to address questions relating to personal engagement in the study of the Holocaust.