The spatial turn in Holocaust studies and historical research more broadly has provided some key
new insights into how we think about the past and understand people’s lives in relation to their
surroundings. This week we will look at a recent special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research
which sought to outline an ‘environmental history of the Holocaust’ as an offshoot of the spatial
lens. In doing so, we can discuss how spatial histories have evolved and what environmental history
can contribute to our understanding of the Holocaust.

Tim Cole, ‘Expanding (Environmental) Histories of the Holocaust’, Journal of Genocide Research 22:2,
(2020), pp. 273-279.

Jacek Małczyński, ‘The Politics of Nature at the Former Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp’,
Journal of Genocide Research 22:2, (2020), pp. 197-219.