The Holocaust Encyclopedia as a phenomenon of contemporary digital encyclopedism

In the era of global digital communication, encyclopedic resources have become vital instruments of humanities education and historical memory. A successful example is the Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—a digital platform that combines the functions of a reference work, an archive, an educational resource, and a space for public reflection. The purpose of this article is to examine this resource as a phenomenon of contemporary encyclopedic culture. The study employs descriptive-analytical and historiographic methods, combining an analysis of scholarly publications with a structural and functional review of the Holocaust Encyclopedia itself. It demonstrates that the project has undergone several stages of development—from an electronic museum tool in the 1990s to a modern multimedia encyclopedia. Today, the resource includes nearly one thousand articles in English, some of which have been translated into nineteen languages, including Ukrainian. Owing to its well-designed content strategy, multimedia features, and interactive tools, it has become one of the most influential online resources on the Holocaust. Its materials are easily discoverable within the Ukrainian digital space. The article outlines prospects for creating a similar digital project in Ukraine, noting that the Holocaust Encyclopedia may serve as a methodological and technological model for future Ukrainian initiatives that combine academic rigor, educational purpose, and openness to a global audience.