Abstract For many possible reasons, Holocaust historians have been slower than scholars in other fields to engage with the study of emotions. Recent works, however, suggest that a focus on emotions increases our understanding of the experience and motivations of our historical actors. In this methodological essay, the author draws on concepts from a cognate discipline, the history of emotions, to discuss four questions that arose during the “Holocaust and Emotions” workshop in June 2023 that led to this special issue. One regards emotion and memory: How do people remember their feelings about events, as opposed to the events themselves? Two questions engage with the interpretation of so-called ego-documents (testimony, memoirs, diaries, etc.): How do the emotional norms of social groups shape both the experience and recording of feelings; and how might individuals’ emotional goals lead them to instrumentalize their testimony in ways that affect how they are expressed? Finally, what can we consider valid evidence for subjectively experienced emotion in the past? Throughout, the author argues for consideration of the widest possible range of emotions. Even though we may find feelings such as desire and love difficult to analyze in the context of the Holocaust, a full account of our historical actors’ experience must include positive as well as negative emotions.
Lisa Peschel (Fri,) studied this question.