The Holocaust stands out from other massacres because of how much it has been
documented and written about on social media; in short films; in books; in articles; in
documentaries; and in Hollywood films. Henry Gonshak reflects that how Hollywood
represents the Holocaust should be taken note of by ‘anyone concerned about public
perceptions of the Holocaus t’. He writes beforehand that many people, including ‘the
average American’ learn about this monstrous atrocity ‘not through history books,
documentary films, or “serious” works of literature and cinema but rather through
Hollywood portrayals’. 12 Such a commonly portrayed historical event, with so much
coverage (as mentioned before, no other genocide has been documented so much), must be
taught accurately, and also, respectfully.
When most countries across the world first went into full-blown lockdowns, which
were put in place to save lives and stop the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, many cruel
and insensitive comparisons were made between that, then-current, uncertain situation and
the Holocaust. The lockdowns were compared to the famous Anne Frank, who was forced
into hiding for over two years in Amsterdam to escape Nazi persecution. Unfortunately,
Anne and the other people in the annexe were discovered in August 1944. They were all sent
to camps. No other historical figure from another time period was used to make such a
heartless comparison. As Ben Zion Gad writes in the Jerusalem Post , ‘Holocaust trivialization
has become increasingly mainstream among many politicians, grassroots movements, in the
media and online’. He continues that it is ‘a gateway to outright Holocaust denial’. Gad
writes that he spoke with Vera Grossman Kriegel, a survivor of Joseph Mengele’s cruel
‘medical’ experiments in Auschwitz who said, ‘We received shots today to live, whereas in
12 Henry Gonshak, Hollywood and the Holocaust (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), p. 1
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