What Are Holocaust Studies? Understanding History, Memory and Education

Explore an Interdisciplinary Field Dedicated to Researching the Holocaust, Preserving Memory and Understanding Its Continuing Significance

More than eight decades after the Holocaust, its history continues to demand rigorous research, careful education and responsible remembrance. Understanding the Holocaust involves more than establishing a chronology of events. It requires examining how persecution developed, how institutions and individuals participated in it, how victims experienced it, how societies responded and how the history of the Holocaust has subsequently been remembered, represented and taught. This is the field of Holocaust Studies.

Bringing together history, psychology, sociology, literature, philosophy, education and memory studies, Holocaust Studies provides an interdisciplinary approach to one of the defining events of modern history.

At Touro Berlin, the MA in Holocaust Studies is dedicated to education, research and remembrance, giving graduate students the opportunity to examine the Holocaust from multiple academic perspectives while developing the research and analytical skills required to engage responsibly with its history.

Located in Berlin but designed with flexible online learning, the program also connects academic study with memorial sites, archives, international perspectives and the continuing responsibility of Holocaust education.

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What Are Holocaust Studies?

Holocaust Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field focused on researching, interpreting, documenting and teaching the Holocaust.

Historical research remains fundamental, but understanding the Holocaust requires questions that extend beyond history alone.

How did modern institutions develop mechanisms that excluded people from equal treatment? How did antisemitic persecution become increasingly systematic? What structures made mass persecution and genocide possible? How should historians understand perpetration and collaboration? How did individuals and societies respond? How have survivors' experiences been documented? How has memory changed between generations?

The field also examines what happened after the Holocaust. Researchers study justice and restitution, survivor testimony, public memory, Holocaust education and the representation of the Holocaust in museums, memorials, literature and film.

This interdisciplinary character means students are not simply learning what happened. They are learning how evidence is evaluated, how interpretations are constructed and how knowledge about the Holocaust is communicated responsibly.

Why Study the Holocaust Today?

The passage of time does not reduce the importance of Holocaust research. In many respects, it creates additional responsibilities.

As the distance between contemporary society and the events of the Holocaust increases, archives, historical scholarship, survivor testimonies, museums, memorials and educational institutions become increasingly important for preserving evidence and transmitting knowledge. Holocaust Studies therefore asks students to engage critically with both history and memory.

Understanding the Holocaust requires careful attention to victims and their experiences while also investigating the political, institutional, social and psychological structures surrounding persecution and genocide.

Students must learn to distinguish evidence from assumption, examine competing interpretations critically and communicate complex historical material accurately. These skills matter within academic research, but they are equally important in museums, memorial institutions, archives, education and public communication.

Holocaust Studies Goes Beyond a Single Academic Discipline

One reason Holocaust Studies is such a complex field is that no single discipline can answer all of its questions.

History provides methods for reconstructing events through documents, archives and other evidence. Sociology can contribute to understanding institutions, groups and social structures, while psychology can raise questions about human behavior, decision-making and participation.

Literature and film present another set of questions. How can the Holocaust be represented? How have writers, filmmakers and artists approached experiences that resist simple representation? What responsibilities accompany the interpretation of testimony and historical suffering?

Philosophy introduces questions about morality, responsibility and justice, while education examines how knowledge about the Holocaust should be communicated to different generations and cultural contexts.

At Touro Berlin, students encounter these perspectives within the same graduate program, allowing them to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust and the ways it continues to be researched and represented.

Studying Perpetration, Collaboration and Memory

Understanding the Holocaust also requires examining the structures and individuals involved in perpetration and collaboration. This is academically demanding territory because simplistic explanations can obscure rather than clarify the historical processes involved.

Touro Berlin’s MA encourages students to examine perpetration and collaboration through historical, psychological and sociological frameworks, asking how institutions, ideologies, social environments and individual choices interacted. Memory creates another important field of investigation.

The way societies remember historical events is not fixed. Public understanding can change across generations, and museums, monuments, films, textbooks, political debates and family histories can all influence how the past is represented.

Students therefore investigate not only the Holocaust itself but also the development, distortion and communication of Holocaust memory.

Study Holocaust Memorials, Museums and Archives

Some of the most important work in Holocaust Studies happens through direct engagement with historical sources and the institutions responsible for preserving them. Touro Berlin incorporates access to international archives, virtual tours of Holocaust memorials and opportunities to examine how memorial sites communicate history to contemporary audiences.

Students can explore how exhibitions are constructed, how historical evidence is presented and how institutions balance education, commemoration and scholarly accuracy.

The program also includes funded excursions and opportunities to engage with Holocaust memorial sites, providing another connection between academic research and public history.

These experiences can be especially valuable for students considering careers in museums, memorials, archives or Holocaust education because they demonstrate how scholarship moves from research into public presentation.

Why Study Holocaust Studies in Berlin?

Berlin occupies a particularly significant position within Holocaust history and remembrance. The city contains institutions, archives, museums, memorials and historical locations connected with National Socialism, Jewish history, persecution, deportation, resistance and postwar remembrance.

Studying Holocaust Studies through Touro Berlin therefore creates a meaningful connection between academic research and the historical environment surrounding the university.

Touro’s own relationship with Holocaust education also extends back through the history of its Berlin campus. After visiting Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial in 2005, Touro founder Dr. Bernard Lander established the Lander Institute for Communication and Tolerance, and teaching in the MA program began in 2007.

Today, the MA continues that commitment through a program centered on historical scholarship, remembrance and education.

An International and Flexible Approach to Holocaust Education

Holocaust history crosses national borders, and studying it requires international perspectives. Touro Berlin’s program includes shared online courses with students in Israel, creating opportunities for academic exchange across different educational and cultural contexts.

Students also examine Holocaust education comparatively, considering how different countries teach, represent and remember the Holocaust.

At the same time, the program’s online and sometimes hybrid structure provides flexibility for students and professionals who may not be able to relocate permanently or attend traditional daytime classes. The entire program is taught in English, and no German-language test or certificate is required for the program.

This combination makes it possible to connect a Berlin-based academic program with students and perspectives extending far beyond Germany.

The Only Master’s Program of Its Kind in Germany and the EU

Touro Berlin describes its MA in Holocaust Studies as the only Master’s program of its kind in Germany and the European Union. The distinction reflects the specialized nature of a graduate degree dedicated specifically to the interdisciplinary study of Holocaust history, representation, education and remembrance. The program is also designed to make specialized graduate education more accessible through a scholarship covering more than 75% of tuition fees for the MA.

Students learn in small classes and work with faculty whose academic research, publications and professional connections provide opportunities to engage closely with specialists in the field.

For students considering further research, education, museum work or other professional directions connected with history and remembrance, this environment can provide both specialized knowledge and valuable academic connections.

From Holocaust Studies to Research, Education and Remembrance

Studying the Holocaust carries particular academic responsibilities. Researchers and educators work with evidence of persecution, displacement and murder as well as personal testimony and the experiences of victims and survivors. Accuracy, context and respect are therefore fundamental to the field.

At Touro Berlin, the journey from student to researcher can include engagement with survivor testimony, historical sources, memorial institutions and questions surrounding restitution and remembrance.

Former students have taken this experience into further academic research and professional work. Graduate Niels Pohl, for example, continued as a researcher and doctoral candidate at the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, while graduate Svea Hammerle has described how her experience developing educational materials, curating exhibitions and working with Berlin memorial sites supported her later professional and doctoral work.

Their experiences demonstrate that Holocaust Studies can connect academic knowledge with research and public history beyond the university.

Study Holocaust Studies at Touro Berlin

Holocaust Studies is ultimately about more than remembering that the Holocaust happened.

It is about understanding how it happened, reconstructing its history through evidence, preserving the experiences of its victims, examining the actions of perpetrators and collaborators, studying how societies remember the past and considering how that knowledge should be communicated to future generations.

The MA in Holocaust Studies at Touro Berlin brings those questions together within an interdisciplinary, English-taught graduate program combining research, education, memorial engagement and international perspectives.

For students interested in history, Jewish studies, memory, museums, education or academic research, the program offers an opportunity to study the Holocaust with the depth and responsibility the subject demands.

Understanding history begins with evidence, but preserving its meaning requires people prepared to research, teach and communicate it carefully.

Note: This blog provides educational and editorial content on a variety of topics. The views and interpretations expressed in individual articles do not necessarily reflect the official position of Touro University Berlin or Touro University.