Eva G. Reichmann and Holocaust Scholarship

Abstract German-British Jewish scholar, Dr Eva Gabriele Reichmann made significant contributions to the postwar historiography of the Holocaust, well before ‘Holocaust studies’ was established as a field. She was a prolific author on the history of antisemitism, German Jewish emancipation, and National Socialism; an early documenter of the experiences of Holocaust refugees, victims, and survivors; and a Jewish community activist within Germany during the rise of the Nazis and after her compulsory migration to England. Forced to leave Berlin in 1939 for London, Reichmann’s experiences as a German Jewish refugee woman devoted to communal defense, Jewish diaspora ‘as task,’ and interfaith dialogue shaped her work and intellectual legacy. Despite her publications and contributions to multiple fields, and although a contemporary of the renowned philosopher Hannah Arendt, her work as a producer of Holocaust knowledge has been neglected. This is in part due to her gender, her work outside the traditional academy, as well as the split between German (and German Jewish) historiography and Holocaust historiography. However, Reichmann’s contributions not only to scholarship on the political and cultural identity of German Jewry and National Socialist antisemitism but also to postwar Holocaust-related archives-building secure her rightful place in the historiography of the Holocaust.