Holocaust Essays

As years go by there is one thing that remains, the memory surrounding The Holocaust. For years after the Second World War, it was prominent in most civilians’ minds and is still true. Throughout the decades the Holocaust followed there have been many different approaches surrounding the development of the social memory of one of the worst and most deadly mass genocides in world history. Over the post-Holocaust era timeline, social memory has developed into an education and informational tool, pop culture media, and remembrance of the past.

Many historians choose to write about the Holocaust to shed light on the era to be able to educate others. When historians examine Holocaust memoirs, they learn not to rely on them for ‘information on specific events, places, dates, figures, which turn out to be, with metronomic regularity, false.” The vision of the Holocaust communicated in memoirs addresses itself to the heart, not to the mind… This vision makes the historian uneasy. Not that he is indifferent to the suffering, that he has not himself also been overwhelmed by tales of suffering, and fascinated by some of them. But because he realizes that this juxtaposition of stories is not a historical account, and that, in a sense, it cancels out the historical account. How can one put together a coherent historical account if it has to be constantly opposed to another truth, that of individual memory? How can one incite people to reflect, to think, to be rigorous when feelings and emotions invade the public arena? Holocaust survivors that are still living write memoirs and books about their time spent whether it be in camps and/or the deaths of loved ones. Most recently, 93-year-old survivor Eva Olsson has been on a book tour across Canada speaking about her third novel and her own horrific personal account of what she went through. Olsson goes into detail about how she survived, those who she lost during that horrid time, and how she is still to this day overcoming it and sharing her story with others. She wishes to share her story to children and parents, Olsson believes that many parents fail to talk about the Holocaust with their children because it’s a difficult subject but she believes it’s imperative for their future. She notes, ‘It’s important for children to know what hate is and still does.” She is also thankful for the opportunity to do so, ‘when I speak to the students, they are allowing me to keep my family spirit alive. I couldn’t do it without them.” The retelling of memories and first-hand accounts of the Holocaust has developed deeply over numerous years.

Pop culture brings the social memory of the Holocaust into a different light and aspect. Most notably the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which is based on the novel of the same name by John Boyne, depicts the horror of a Nazi extermination camp through the eyes of two 8-year-old boys; Bruno who is the son of the camp’s Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish inmate. Although the film does bring light to the horrors and gruesome murders of a massive number of Jewish people, it has drawn criticism from some Holocaust educators due to its lack of historical accuracy. That is one of the many problems surrounding the idea of turning a not only controversial but delicate period in history into a pop culture reference. The story is not very realistic and contains many implausibilities because children were murdered when they arrived at Auschwitz and it was not possible for them to have contact with people on the outside. This film is shown prominently in high schools during a social studies class when discussing the topic of the Holocaust.

A study by the Centre for Holocaust Education at University College London found that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas ‘is having a significant, and significantly problematic impact on the way young people attempt to make sense of this complex past’. However, a more recent study found that the film’s reception is strongly based on the viewers’ previous knowledge and beliefs. Research by Holocaust educator Michael Gray found that more than three-quarters of schoolchildren (ages 13–14) in his sample had engaged with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, significantly more than The Diary of Anne Frank. The children believed that the story contained a lot of useful information about the Holocaust and conveyed an accurate impression of many real-life events. The majority believed that it was based on a true story. He also found that many students drew false inferences from the film, such as assuming that Germans would not have known anything about the Holocaust because Bruno’s family didn’t, or that the Holocaust had stopped because a Nazi child had accidentally been gassed. Other students believed that Jews had volunteered to go to the camps because they had been fooled by Nazi propaganda, rather than being violently rounded up and deported. Scholars have criticized the film for obscuring the historical facts about the Holocaust and creating a false equivalence between victims and perpetrators.

Social memory is most commonly shown and developed by remembrance on either certain days, memorials, and even exhibits. January 27th of every year is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is an international memorial day commemorating the tragedy that was the Holocaust. The 27th was chosen because on January 27, 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated by the Red Army. Prior to this set day of remembrance, there had been national days of commemoration, such as Germany’s Tag des Gedenkens a die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. In Berlin, Germany there is a memorial for those who lost their lives named, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe but also known as the Holocaust Memorial. Remembrance of the past will always continue to grow as more is uncovered of the tragedy.

The social memory of the Holocaust will forever continue to develop and grow as the world finds more memorable and heartfelt ways to commemorate and remember those who lost their lives in the horrible event in history. Educational/informational tools, pop culture, and remembrance of the past will change in every passing year even if it is a small fraction. In the Holocaust, those who died too soon, and those who survived all deserve to be remembered in anyways that can be found, their lives changed for the worst and at least as time goes on there can be ways to ease their lives and memories of that terrible time endured during World War II.