What we talk about when we talk about digital Holocaust memory: A systematic analysis of research published in academic journals, 2010–2022

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, digital technologies have presented new opportunities for innovative Holocaust commemoration and education. Accordingly, scholars across disciplines have focused on “digital Holocaust memory” as a new frontier in both research and practice. But what exactly do they mean when they use this term? This article provides a systematic analysis of the literature regarding digital Holocaust memory as published in leading academic journals between 2010 and 2022. We position the digitalization of Holocaust memory within the context of the global evolution of memory culture and differentiate between the Holocaust’s “master narrative” and alternative, more peripheral Holocaust-related themes and perspectives. Scholars perceive the digitalization of Holocaust memory as enabling a new focus on marginal Holocaust-related narratives, but we demonstrate that they nevertheless tend to remain in the comfort zone of well-established Holocaust narratives while ignoring digital commemoration and education taking place at geographic and thematic margins. By focusing on the traditional master narrative of the Holocaust, we argue that the extant literature regarding digital Holocaust memory primarily serves to preserve the centrality of this narrative.