Final Report of the International Commission on the - Minority Rights ...

o<strong>the</strong>r genocides rests in <strong>the</strong> “intended totality” <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Final</strong> Solution, which aimed at all Jews wherever
<strong>the</strong>y lived, and made no exceptions (e.g., through collaboration or conversion <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> “enemy” into a “New
Man,” which was possible in <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> Communist repressions).
During <strong>the</strong> past two decades, <strong>the</strong> uniqueness <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Holocaust has been subjected to intense debates.
Suffice it to mention that in <strong>the</strong>ir proximity, a trend was born that hijacked <strong>the</strong> legitimate use <strong>of</strong>
comparisons for <strong>the</strong> purpose <strong>of</strong> minimizing <strong>the</strong> Holocaust. A valuable and legitimate cognitive instrument
used for improving historical knowledge and for <strong>the</strong> delimitation <strong>of</strong> similarities and differences between
comparable phenomena has thus been turned into a strategy <strong>of</strong> denial, <strong>of</strong> minimalization, and <strong>of</strong>
banalization <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Holocaust.
The negationists and those promoting trivialization by comparison abuse <strong>the</strong> multi-layered meanings
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> term “uniqueness” to accuse Jews <strong>of</strong> trying to build a “monopoly on suffering” for lucrative
purposes. They engage in <strong>the</strong>se allegations despite <strong>the</strong> fact that experts on <strong>the</strong> Holocaust have repeatedly
shown that its uniqueness is not argued in order to transform <strong>the</strong> tragedy <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Jews into <strong>the</strong> only
collective suffering that should be paid attention or into a tragedy incomparable to any o<strong>the</strong>r, but in order
to draw attention to <strong>the</strong> extreme specificity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Nazi collective project. The <strong>the</strong>me <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> “monopoly on
suffering” is sometimes present in academic studies too. In his famous introduction to The Black Book <strong>of</strong>
Communism (1998), Stephane Curtois wrote:
After 1945 <strong>the</strong> Jewish genocide became a byword for modern barbarism, <strong>the</strong> epitome <strong>of</strong> twentiethcentury
mass terror…More recently, a single-minded focus on <strong>the</strong> Jewish genocide in an attempt to
characterize <strong>the</strong> Holocaust as a unique atrocity has also prevented <strong>the</strong> assessment <strong>of</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r episodes <strong>of</strong>
comparable magnitude in <strong>the</strong> Communist world. After all, it seems scarcely plausible that <strong>the</strong> victors who
had helped bring about <strong>the</strong> destruction <strong>of</strong> a genocidal apparatus might <strong>the</strong>mselves have put <strong>the</strong> very same
methods into practice. When faced with this paradox, people generally preferred to bury <strong>the</strong>ir heads in
sand.
Curtois’s final remarks are a charge against <strong>the</strong> Jews. He fur<strong>the</strong>r added that “Communist regimes have
victimized approximately 100 million people in contrast to <strong>the</strong> approximately 25 million <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Nazis”
The remarks triggered numerous controversies, including among contributors to <strong>the</strong> Black Book—some
<strong>of</strong> whom distanced <strong>the</strong>mselves from Courtois’s calculation <strong>of</strong> victims as well as from some <strong>of</strong> his
presumptions in <strong>the</strong> “introduction.” This dispute is beyond <strong>the</strong> focus <strong>of</strong> this study, but it is important to
note that Courtois’s controversial propositions have had a great impact in Eastern Europe, where
prominent politicians and intellectuals have uncritically embraced <strong>the</strong>m.
The comparison to <strong>the</strong> Gulag has trivialized <strong>the</strong> Holocaust in three ways. The first was described by
Alan S. Rosenbaum and Vladimir Tismăneanu as “competitive martyrology.” Based on <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong>
victims, this argument contests <strong>the</strong> uniqueness <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Holocaust and <strong>the</strong> special attention it has benefited
from; second, <strong>the</strong> argument also attributes <strong>the</strong> absence <strong>of</strong> a proper memorialization <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Gulag to <strong>the</strong>
alleged “monopoly” exerted over international collective memory by <strong>the</strong> Holocaust; finally, <strong>the</strong> same
argument <strong>of</strong>ten accuses <strong>the</strong> Jews <strong>of</strong> having been instrumental in establishing <strong>the</strong> communist regimes—a
charge aimed at “explaining” and retroactively justifying <strong>the</strong> Holocaust.
But, as already mentioned, <strong>the</strong> Holocaust’s uniqueness does not rest in <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> victims it
produced. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, if <strong>the</strong> memorialization <strong>of</strong> Communism in Eastern Europe is on shaky grounds,
this is nei<strong>the</strong>r due to an alleged “monopoly” exercised by <strong>the</strong> memorialization <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Holocaust, nor is it
so because <strong>of</strong> some Jewish “complicity” in obstructing its exercise. Ra<strong>the</strong>r, <strong>the</strong> phenomenon is due to <strong>the</strong>
absence <strong>of</strong> social, political, and academic inclination in <strong>the</strong>se countries to study, assume responsibility
for, and properly memorialize Communism. <strong>Final</strong>ly, studies undertaken thus far as well as this report