Hidden Histories and the Appropriation of the Holocaust in the American Narrative

Abstract

Hidden Histories and the Appropriation of the Holocaust in the American Narrative By Rebecca Weston Hidden Histories and the Appropriation of the Holocaust in the American Narrative By Rebecca Weston 1 “Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain.” —Saʿdī Introduction W hen confirmed stories and photos of liberation reached the West in 1945, the horrors of Nazi atrocities in concentration camps were undoubtedly shocking to an unknowing American public. Subsequent questions of how and why such barbarity could take placed in a civilized world were surely demanded by its empathetic citizens. Yet as Laurel Leff, author of Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper writes, this simply was not so and it proved to be an erroneous assumption that nation-wide press reports, including the New York Times, delivered direct evidence of Germany’s crimes against European Jews; to believe that their unique tragedy emerged vis-a-vis liberation is simply untrue. 2 On the contrary, it appears that the contemporary American narrative of the Holocaust has risen prominently in recent culture, over half a century removed from the culmination of World War II. As Alan Mintz argues in Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America, a heightened consciousness has materialized in and beyond European and American The author, being also an editor, recused herself from the editing process regarding this article. It received no special treatment and was required to conform to all standard requirements. Laurel Leff, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (Cambridge University Press, 2006).