Characteristics of Holocaust Historiography and Their Contexts since 1990: Emphases, Perceptions, Developments, Debates

This chapter reviews themes in scholarly literature since 1990, interprets changing emphases in research directions enabled by political and social changes in Europe, and discusses the facilitation of transnational research alliances and the impact of new technologies on the accessibility of archival repositories of Holocaust. It focuses on local participation in the anti-Jewish enterprise in Eastern Europe. A clear characteristic of the post-1990 period is the historiographical attempt to penetrate the mindset of real-time individual perpetrators and especially that of killers. The chapter also discusses emerging research methodologies which opened up the possibility to reexamine issues that were tackled in the past but not fully understood, as well as explores in-depth dynamics of behavior by institutions and individuals, especially on the grassroots level.