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April 7, 2010
Have we hit Holocaust fatigue?
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Chimneys are among the last vestiges of the wooden barracks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. Photos by Jon Kean
For one day in December, the word “Auschwitz” was ranked second on Yahoo’s daily list of most-popular searches. Third most popular that day? LeAnn Rimes. So what did it take for a symbol of the attempted destruction of an entire race of people as well as millions of others to outpace a country singer in her 20s? The previous day, five bumbling crooks stole the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign that teased and tormented prisoners passing through the main gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. This brazen crime was subsequently solved, the sign was recovered in Northern Poland, and searches for Auschwitz returned to their normal ranking well outside of the top 10.
On April 12, Auschwitz and the Holocaust may once again return to the top 10, as the United States pauses to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jews and gentiles will gather to hear testimony, shed tears and hugs, and then swear “never again.” Unfortunately, the words “never again” do not seem to be referring to preventing future genocides, but rather to a dismissal of the Holocaust for the following 364 days. Holocaust fatigue has blanketed the population of the United States.
“Defiance,” “The Reader,” “Valkyrie,” “Inglourious Basterds.”
How can we be ignoring something that was in every multiplex across the nation this year?
What about museums? The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened in Skokie in spring 2009, and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the oldest one of its kind in the United States, will open the doors of its new home Pan Pacific Park this fall. The Holocaust is as present now as it ever was in our hearts and minds. We remember, we educate. But, in a very real way, we have moved on.
We have gone from a world that faced the reality of the Nazi death mills in print and film to a world that is Holocaust adjacent. When we do talk or remember, it is not about the camps themselves but about a tangential story. The Holocaust is now a character in films and books. A plot point. A figure in the background. At times it is used as a fable, like “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” At other times, it is fictionalized outright, as in “Inglourious Basterds.” An entire generation of children is growing up in a post- “Schindler’s List” world, without a point of reference as to the reality of the Holocaust. These children have no visual depiction of the Holocaust. Ask a teenager what he or she sees when you mention the word Holocaust. The answer will not be the same one you would get if you asked a person in his 40s or 50s. We have moved away from the actual concentration camps, and we don’t seem to be going back.
This idea of becoming Holocaust adjacent may seem shocking at first, but then, upon inspection, eerily accurate. Our films no longer take us to the camps. They take us near the camps. They take us to a post-camp world. As long as they take us to a place where the specter of the Holocaust merely looms in the background, foreboding, foreshadowing or coloring a character’s back story, we may turn out to watch. While it seems that the Holocaust is everywhere in film and television, if you stop and look a bit more closely, you’ll see very little about the systematic destruction of 11 million people.
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Perhaps there would be a reawakening of Halocaust interest if the history, from the inception, to completion showed what it did to other religions and other groups that were brutilized.
- Comment by Marion Mandeson on 4/12/10 at 1:02 am
I bet the Palestinians have (Holocaust Fatigue).
I guess no one told you guys that it’s no longer considered a reasonable practice to run people out of their homes and occupy their land, Canaanite, Palestinian, or otherwise.
- Comment by Martin on 4/12/10 at 10:23 am
The recent broadcast by PBS of “The Diary Of Anne Frank”, starring Ellie Kendrick as Anne, was an inspired homage to one of the greatest true stories of World War II. It helps us focus on why the camps were built, and the suffering of those who tried to flee the Nazi tyranny.
- Comment by Ken S. on 4/13/10 at 9:44 am
“So what did it take for a symbol of the attempted destruction of an entire race of people”
Jews are a race of people? I thought it was a religion?
- Comment by JC on 1/29/11 at 6:08 pm
Maybe if we could stop embarrassing rhetoric like this. we could find our way to more mutual sympathy:
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef:“The goyim were born only to serve us Jews. Without that, they have no place in the world - only to serve the people of Israel. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi (a lord or master) and eat.
That is why gentiles were created”
October 18, 2010 as quoted in the Jerusalem Post
- Comment by H. Gold on 1/30/11 at 1:47 am
We are starting an online holocaust channel in March 2011, curating and trying to find the best resources, moderated as best we can. Thanks for your article…
- Comment by Michael Declan Dunn on 2/11/11 at 5:45 pm
“I’m working on converting to Judaism”
What a waste of time.
- Comment by JC on 6/24/11 at 2:19 pm
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I’m working on converting to Judaism but I disagree that people don’t want to see these images anymore. If anything for people like myself who never experienced the horror of the Holocaust (thank G-d) will never fully be able to understand how serious and atrocious these actions were and it just shouldn’t be swept under the rug no matter what. I agree with the author’s friend as well with the creation of a Holocaust Channel, what an EXCELLENT idea!!
*Wonderful article, by the way.