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This synthesis examines the historiography of the Holocaust and offers new interpretations of the complex interactions between Nazi Germany, local populations, and Jews in Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945. In opposition to an increasingly forceful revisionist approach taking hold in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, recent studies, primarily produced by the English-speaking world, have rightfully turned the spotlight away from Germans and towards Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians, ethnic Germans, and other groups in Eastern Europe. As a result, the categories that most historians tend to use, especially “executor/victim/witness” and “collaboration/ resistance”, have lost their analytical accuracy. A more complex image of Nazioccupied countries has emerged, requiring a new theoretical framework. Using three criteria that shed new light on the social history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, this essay observes that the paradigms of the past have prevented researchers from embracing a wider spectrum of social groups and behaviors that were not part of the political sphere. By establishing connections between the isolated historical records dealing with Central and Eastern Europe and German, Jewish, and Soviet societies, this article aims to expand the dialog and include other disciplines that study genocide and mass violence. Holocaust studies are at a crossroads. Only a transnational historical approach that encompasses all ethnic groups and temporal and geographic viewpoints will allow us to better understand the social dynamics that shaped the development of the Holocaust.

This synthesis examines the historiography of the Holocaust and offers new interpretations of the complex interactions between Nazi Germany, local populations, and Jews in Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945. In opposition to an increasingly forceful revisionist approach taking hold in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, recent studies, primarily produced by the English-speaking world, have rightfully turned the spotlight away from Germans and towards Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians, ethnic Germans, and other groups in Eastern Europe. As a result, the categories that most historians tend to use, especially “executor/victim/witness” and “collaboration/ resistance”, have lost their analytical accuracy. A more complex image of Nazioccupied countries has emerged, requiring a new theoretical framework. Using three criteria that shed new light on the social history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, this essay observes that the paradigms of the past have prevented researchers from embracing a wider spectrum of social groups and behaviors that were not part of the political sphere. By establishing connections between the isolated historical records dealing with Central and Eastern Europe and German, Jewish, and Soviet societies, this article aims to expand the dialog and include other disciplines that study genocide and mass violence. Holocaust studies are at a crossroads. Only a transnational historical approach that encompasses all ethnic groups and temporal and geographic viewpoints will allow us to better understand the social dynamics that shaped the development of the Holocaust.