This article analyses the power or attraction of certain unitary historical meaning(s) that can be generated by Holocaust education. More specifically, it argues that forms of historical consciousness developed by a group of Australian-Jewish teenagers (and accessible herein through a collection of essays written using Holocaust testimony) can be used as evidence of the nature of their engagement with Holocaust history and, as such, revealing examples of the ways in which engagement with Holocaust history has shaped historical consciousness in service to personal and social (communal) needs.