Emotions and the Holocaust: A Renewed Historiography

Emotions are everywhere.Countries are now ranked based on their level of 'happiness' , voters' choices are influenced by feelings of anger and fear and recent research even suggests that feelings of joy and optimism can lead to a longer life. 1 Historians have also become preoccupied with the impact of emotions on the course of history itself and the processes of historical writing and remembering. 2One of the most emotionally wrought events in modern European history is the Holocaust.Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi regime and its collaborators murdered nearly six million Jewish individuals and five million non-Jewish civilians. 3These numbers do not account for the extremity of emotional lives during the Holocaust.In Eastern Europe, shooting squads called Einsatzgruppen combed the countryside, rounding up, humiliating and killing Jews at point-blank range.In the West, Jewish families were crammed into rail carriages and sent on brutal journeys plagued by starvation and fear.