Holocaust

Entry updated 24 January 2022. Tagged: Theme.

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1. A blanket item ofTerminology used in this encyclopedia for the fictionally popular variety of catastrophe which is directly caused by human or occasionallyAlien action, intentional or otherwise. Natural calamities are dealt with underDisaster, as are cases where a technically human-instigated cataclysm has effects similar to a natural one. For example, human interference with theEcology, generally throughPollution or the subtler operations ofClimate Change, may have effects resembling natural upheavals; if humanity is considered part of nature (seeGaia) then such repercussionsare in a sense natural.

Related entries includeEntropy (holocaust is one of the more dramatic aspects of everything running down),History in SF (human-inspired disasters are often seen as part of a Toynbeean or Spenglerian process of historical cycles), theEnd of the World (holocaust on a major scale),Medicine (the agent of holocaust is often plague),Optimism and Pessimism, and above all, from 1945 to at least the late twentieth century, a nuclearWorld War Three – the most popular agent of holocaust in fiction sinceWorld War Two.

Extraterrestrial nuclear holocausts of the past are often cited as dire warnings in sf. GeraldHeard'sReply Paid (1942) and Robert AHeinlein'sSpace Cadet (1948) are among many works speculating that a former planet betweenMars andJupiter was broken up by such a catastrophe to become theAsteroids. Similarly, Robert AHeinlein's "Blowups Happen" (September 1940Astounding) suggests that theMoon's inhabitants destroyed themselves through a failure of nuclear reactor safety, and the Martians of PelhamGroom'sThe Purple Twilight (1948) prove to be the survivors of a terrible civilWar fought with nuclearWeapons. LordDunsany'sJorkens stories include similar awful-warning explanations of the asteroids, the moon's cratered barrenness, and the destruction of a previous cycle of the entire universe (seeCosmology).

2. For the specific Holocaust ofWorld War Two – the attempted Nazi extermination, in the name ofEugenics, primarily of Europe's Jews, the Shoa in which 6,000,000 Jews were murdered; but also the Romani or Roma (gypsies), homosexuals and others – seeHolocaust Fiction.

SeveralFantasy andScience Fantasy scenarios posit that this gigantic human sacrifice had a hidden purpose related toMagic, thus linking with Nazi occult obsessions. Such works include DavidBrin's "Thor Meets Captain America" (July 1986F&SF), BarbaraHambly'sThe Magicians of Night (1992; vtMagicians of the Night1992), HarryTurtledove'sDarknessAlternate-History series opening withInto the Darkness (1999), and the title piece of CharlesStross'sThe Atrocity Archives (coll of linked stories2004).

More comfortably, a modest number ofAlternate History scenarios elide the Holocaust from the twentieth century, sometimes idyllically and sometimes suggesting that a high price has been paid and/or that the fearful momentum of theHitler Wins timeline will somehow reassert itself. Examples include: "The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny" (inApocalypses, coll1977) by R ALafferty;Elleander Morning (1984) by JerryYulsman;For Love of Evil (1988) in PiersAnthony'sIncarnations of Immortality sequence, where the change is a side-issue in aFantasy restructuring of the world; StephenFry'sMaking History (1996);The Separation (2002) by ChristopherPriest, as one of two delicately balanced versions ofWorld War Two, with Germany's Jews resettled in Madagascar; andThe Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) by MichaelChabon, where the resettlement is in Alaska. [DRL/PN]

further reading

PaulBrians.Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press,1987) [nonfiction: pp114-121: seelinks below: hb/Eric Donelan]
David Dowling.Fictions of Nuclear Disaster (Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press,1987) [nonfiction: hb/from Albrecht Dürer]
Carl BYoke, editor.Phoenix from the Ashes: The Literature of the Remade World (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,1987) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
Martha ABartter.The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,1988) [nonfiction: hb/]