Abstract

This essay investigates Jean-Paul Sartre's reaction to the Holocaust. While Sartre dealt frequently with Jewish themes, he did not explicitly address the question of why the Holocaust occurred or whether and how Western culture would be different in a post-Holocaust world. I claim that although Sartre never addressed the Shoah directly, his Marxist Existentialism provides valuable resources for understanding modern antisemitism. In his major postwar writings he developed the concepts of political engagement, authenticity and responsibility for systematic social harms. Sartre's importance in Holocaust studies is defended against the claim that Existentialism lacks the theoretical resources to grasp modern, systematic evil. Sartre's approach is briefly compared with that of other Western Marxist like Adorno.