The development of understanding of the Holocaust in post-war America was gradual due to a lack of discussion. In order for education to further this understanding, different perspectives and interpretations of the Holocaust were engaged with. Firstly, the incorporation of the Holocaust into American cultural consciousness involved a certain degree of the universalization of the Jewish experience. To begin with, the “general reluctance to speak was deepened by the desire to return to normalcy after the war.” (Flanzbaum) Thus the lack of discussion of the Holocaust left little opportunity for any Americanisation, both in political discourse and representation in film. Israeli scholar Yehuda Bauer argues that it “was unclear how the uniqueness of the Holocaust and its universalist implications could be combined in a way that would be in accord with the American heritage and American political reality.” (Commentary) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s director of communications describes their goal as “en-masse understanding that we are not about what the Germans did to Jews but what people did to people.” (Commentary) Thus, in attempting to adequately raise awareness of the Holocaust in America, their memorialisation fails to capture the nature of the event being inherently a Jewish experience. This is a constant struggle in the American representation of the Holocaust, attempting to “remain faithful to the specific features of those events and, at the same time, address contemporary American social and political agendas.” (Flanzbaum) Beyond this, there is evidence of appropriation of Jewish victimhood, where Americans utilise “signs and symbols of the Nazi Holocaust to describe what they see as their own ‘victimization’ within American society.” (Commentary) Not only is the experience of Jews in Nazi Germany not addressed as the distinct event it was, but their experience is then used and adapted to fit whatever purpose is seen necessary in America.

Given the American perspective on the Second World War and the Nazi regime, there is also an inherent victor’s justice present in the retelling of its story. The moral high ground unavoidably paints all of Germany as cruel and complicit in the Holocaust. It is thus ignored that “it was good people that went along with Hitler that made this possible.” (The Hollywood Reporter) A distinct moral polarisation can be seen here, wherein there is no nuance in the representations of Americans and Germans, including Nazis. Documentarian Rabbi Marvin Hier argues this is why “the movie [Judgement at Nuremberg] was a trailblazer. Until then people thought the Nazis were all thugs”. (The Hollywood Reporter) These themes of universalization, moral polarisation, and re-contextualisation are present through a number of films and television series, including The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Holocaust (1978) and Schindler’s List (1993).

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)