Abstract
Since the millennium studying the “aftermath” of war and genocide, especially with a focus on Jewish activities, became an established research field. This chapter provides an overview of some of this research by mapping and contextualizing the various forms of Jewish responses to the Holocaust in the 1940s and 1950s. It highlights the breadth of Jewish activities in the Diaspora and Israel and their effects on creating Holocaust consciousness. The chapter focuses on three realms of responses: the search for justice and the shaping of legal frameworks after genocide, history writing and documentation, and modes of commemoration. In order to frame these different intentions and manifestations of Jewish responses, it explores the reasons why the first five postwar years appeared to be an extraordinary moment of opportunity and promise.