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Holocaust themes in literature
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Feature film plays a central, but controversial, role in our perception and memory of the Holocaust. Baron’s point that people today are almost all non-witnesses to the events of the Holocaust demonstrates the gap in collective memory, which is exacerbated by the fact that there were few survivors to the atrocities in the Jewish community. Essentially, film has become a medium for perpetuating the memory of the atrocities of the Holocaust, by reaching audiences who did not experience it.
Film has benefitted the memory of the Holocaust by refusing to allow the genocide to be forgotten. For example, the Holocaust miniseries (1978) is credited by some scholarship for refusing to allow the genocide to be incorporated into the massive losses of
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, 2004.
The Holocaust was one of the darkest times in history. Both Night, by Elie Wiesel’s, and Roberto Begnini’s film Life is Beautiful, are set in the time period of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is portrayed very differently in the two pieces. Night has a much more serious tone. It tells how it really was. Life is Beautiful has a happier tone. It uses humor to explain what is happening. Night and Life is Beautiful are similar in the strong emphasis on the father-son bonds formed in each. Also, even though they were written in the same time period, the way that they portray the Holocaust is very different. Lastly, in each the boys are affected by what happened to Jews during the Holocaust. These pieces present themselves as powerfully magnificent and moving, but when it comes to the question of which is more effective in telling the story of the Holocaust, the answer is simple. Night.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
The Holocaust was one of the most devastating events to happen to us a world. On an ordinary day 1,000 people would be plucked from their everyday lives in ghettos. Over 30,000 Jewish people were arrested on Kristallnacht and taken to concentration camps. According to one source, “Over eleven million people were killed and about six million of them happened to be Jews” (“11 Facts”). Producing movies based around the Holocaust is a very controversial topic. There is the ever prominent argument on wheatear or not Holocaust based films can help us understand the different aspects of its reality.
Censorship in the 1950's: How did this affect the making of “Night and Fog” one of the first ever cinematic documentaries on the Holocaust? A film by Alain Resnais.
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
The Holocaust was a very impressionable period of time. It not only got media attention during that time, but movies, books, websites, and other forms of media still remember the Holocaust. In Richard Brietman’s article, “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust,” he reviews two books and one movie that were created to reflect the Holocaust (BREITMAN 11). He notes that the two books are very realistic and give historical facts and references to display the evils that were happening in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This shows that the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust have not been forgotten. Through historical writings and records, the harshness and evil that created the Holocaust will live through centuries, so that it may not be repeated again (BREITMAN 14).
Holocaust Facts The Holocaust has many reasons for it. Some peoples’ questions are never answered about the Holocaust, and some answers are. The Holocaust killed over 6 million Jews (Byers.p.10.) Over 1.5 million children (Byers, p. 10). They were all sent to concentration camps to do hard labor work.
Reading, Anna. "Young People's Viewing Of Holocaust Films In Different Cultural Contexts." Holocaust And The Moving Image (2005): 210-216. RAMBI. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots with-in the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody wins in war. These ideas all correlate with how we view World War II history and how Inglourious Basterds muddles our previous thoughts on how these events occurred.
One could easily dismiss movies as superficial, unnecessarily violent spectacles, although such a viewpoint is distressingly pessimistic and myopic. In a given year, several films are released which have long-lasting effects on large numbers of individuals. These pictures speak
Engelhardt, I. (2002). A Topography of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust at Dachau and Buchenwald in comparison with Auschwitz, Yad Vashem and Washington DC. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes.
Director Mark Herman presents a narrative film that attests to the brutal, thought-provoking Nazi regime, in war-torn Europe. It is obvious that with Herman’s relatively clean representation of this era, he felt it was most important to resonate with the audience in a profound and philosophical manner rather than in a ruthlessness infuriating way. Despite scenes that are more graphic than others, the films objective was not to recap on the awful brutality that took place in camps such as the one in the movie. The audience’s focus was meant to be on the experience and life of a fun-loving German boy named Bruno. Surrounding this eight-year-old boy was conspicuous Nazi influences. Bruno is just an example of a young child among many others oblivious of buildings draped in flags, and Jewis...
In order to give out the true perspective of the Holocaust, filmmakers should factualize,not personalize the experience by trivializing, through communicating with type of art, making art personalized rather than having sources or materials to make it factual. Make sure that they can communicate through educating the people, more than trying to entertain the people. When making Holocaust films, filmmakers should avoid not using sources or references because it could lead to misinterpretation to the audience. They should also avoid lack of emotion. Emotion provides sympathy to the audience, making the audience feel for the characters.
“Introduction to the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 9 Jan 2014.