The Trademarking of Tragedy: Holocaust Memory and Historical Capital
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-George Orwell, 1984
In the global historical consciousness, the Holocaust occupies a near-sacred place. It is the genocide by which all other genocides are measured, a moral and political touchstone that transcends its historical specificity. This exceptional status, however, is not merely the result of the atrocity’s scale or brutality, but a product of extensive cultural and political influence, particularly from the state of Israel and its global allies. Through strategic memorialization practices, educational mandates, and rhetorical framing, Israeli influence has played a central role in shaping the Holocaust as the definitive genocide of the modern world. While this focus has contributed to meaningful remembrance and education, it has also, whether inadvertently or by design, marginalized other genocides and created a troubling hierarchy of suffering.
From its founding in 1948, Israel positioned the Holocaust not only as a national trauma but as a moral justification for its existence. The phrase “Never Again,” while globally resonant, was first and foremost a rallying cry for Jewish survival through sovereignty. Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, exemplifies this synthesis of memory and statehood. Through immersive exhibits, international partnerships, and educational outreach, it has exported a particular interpretation of the Holocaust that centers Jewish victimhood, warns against anti-Semitism, and undergirds Zionist legitimacy.
This model of remembrance has influenced countless institutions worldwide. In the United States, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sits on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., funded in part by federal money and enjoying bipartisan political support. In Germany, Holocaust denial is illegal, and Holocaust education is mandated in schools. Across Europe, Holocaust memorials are far more common than those commemorating colonial genocides, the transatlantic slave trade, or the deaths of Roma, queer people, or the disabled during the Nazi regime itself. These efforts, while important, reflect a selective memory, one that foregrounds Jewish suffering and, often, Israeli political interests.
Such global consensus has come at a cost. The singular elevation of the Holocaust has made it increasingly difficult to apply the term “genocide” to other atrocities without encountering resistance or accusations of historical relativism. The Armenian Genocide, carried out by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, was for decades denied recognition by major Western powers, in part due to Turkish-Israeli diplomatic ties. The Rwandan Genocide, despite its horrific intensity and rapid death toll, is often treated as a distant, African tragedy, worthy of sorrow but not central to Western identity. Even contemporary discussions of Palestinian suffering are met with fierce pushback if framed in genocidal terms, with critics accused of Holocaust inversion or anti-Semitism (which I have already discussed in a previous post).
This hierarchy of remembrance reflects a broader politicization of memory. When one genocide becomes the gold standard of evil, others are either compared reductively or excluded from public discourse altogether. This is not merely an academic concern; it affects international policy, humanitarian intervention, and the dignity afforded to victims of mass violence. When U.S. presidents refer to the Holocaust as a “unique” evil but fail to use the word genocide in contexts like Yemen or Gaza, they perpetuate a moral framework that privileges some lives over others.
To be clear, the critique here is not of Holocaust remembrance itself, but of its monopolization. The horror of the Holocaust deserves remembrance, study, and reflection. But elevating it to a sacred status, immune to comparison and beyond critique, risks transforming history into dogma. It limits our ability to recognize and respond to other atrocities in real time. It fosters a kind of moral myopia, where empathy is rationed according to geopolitical alliances and historical narratives shaped by power rather than truth.
In a world still haunted by genocide, from Myanmar to Congo to Sudan, we must ask ourselves: whose suffering do we memorialize, and why? A more just global memory would not rank atrocities but understand them as interconnected symptoms of dehumanization, empire, nationalism, and unchecked power. Only by de-exceptionalizing the Holocaust, without erasing its horror, can we build a universal ethic of remembrance that honors all victims and challenges the political forces that obscure some genocides while spotlighting others.
The bitterest irony of Holocaust exceptionalism lies in Israel’s current actions toward the Palestinian people. The very nation that has invested so deeply in preserving the memory of genocide, in embedding “Never Again” into global consciousness, now stands accused of perpetrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and potential genocide against another stateless and besieged population. This is not a flippant comparison, but one that is increasingly voiced by scholars, legal experts, human rights organizations, and survivors of past atrocities themselves.
Gaza has been described by many as the world’s largest open-air prison, where over two million Palestinians live under blockade, denied access to adequate food, water, electricity, and medical care. Israeli bombardments have decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and entire residential neighborhoods. Children die en masse. Families are vaporized in their homes. International laws meant to prevent collective punishment are trampled. And yet, invoking the language of genocide in this context is treated as heresy and an affront not just to Israel, but to the memory of the Holocaust itself.
Here, the hypocrisy is laid bare. Israel, once the standard-bearer of post-genocidal justice, now uses that same historical moral authority as a shield against accountability. Any criticism of Israeli policy, even in the face of undeniable atrocities, is deflected as anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial-adjacent, or delegitimizing of Jewish survival. This weaponization of memory transforms remembrance into a tool of repression. It protects power, not people.
Moreover, global institutions and Western governments that have embraced Holocaust memorialization, often with solemn speeches and museum donations, largely remain complicit or silent in the face of Israel’s ongoing violations of international law. The United States, in particular, funds the very weapons that decimate Gaza while simultaneously denouncing “genocide” only when it suits geopolitical interests. This selective moral outrage is not a failure of recognition; it is a strategy of erasure.
What this reveals is the core danger of sacralizing any historical atrocity: it becomes unassailable, above comparison, and easily repurposed by those in power. By elevating the Holocaust to an exceptional, untouchable moral status, the world has created a framework in which genocide is always something that happened in the past; never something happening now, and certainly not at the hands of those once persecuted.
If “Never Again” is to mean anything, it must apply to all people, in all places, regardless of the political discomfort it creates. Otherwise, it becomes nothing more than a slogan; hollow, hypocritical, and drenched in the blood of the very people it claims to protect.