Holocaust in Films

The Holocaust Tragedy: Hollywood Versus Reality

One of the most horrifying tragedies in world history, the Holocaust, struck hearts with fear, unbelief, pain and sorrow. This catastrophe is a colossal part of the past and will never be forgotten. Though the history of the Holocaust is described within pages of novels and by the words of people who survived it, Hollywood has made its attempt to show the reality of it within films throughout past years. Hollywood has the tendency to transform the actuality of the event into simply an appealing film, often times forgetting the importance of the history, but rather making it just another popular, enticing “Americanized” film. In Annette Insdorf’s article, “Nazis and The Movies,” she argues that Hollywood no longer focuses on entertainment, but rather focuses just on the history itself. However, although many Hollywood films concerning the Holocaust are primarily history based, several filmmakers aim for the sole success and entertainment aspect, often forgetting the reality of the event, which the film is truly supposed to be about.

Since the Holocaust tragedy was such an incredibly important, catastrophic event in history, filmmakers want to portray it on the big screens. Yet, Hollywood focuses on the entertainment aspect of film and whether or not it will attract audiences, which ultimately means more and more money. Filmmakers aim for accuracy, but they often do not go to the extremes, just in case it is unappealing to audiences. However, Annette Insdorf explains in “Nazis and The Movies” that Hollywood does not focus on making Holocaust films primarily for money and popularity, but rather, for the history aspect. Moreover, there is a wide range of true stories concerning the Holocaust written by a plethora of people who lived it. Insdorf believes that Hollywood filmmakers regurgitate stories of true personal experiences, trying to make them as accurate as possible. “What's remarkable about this year's releases is the acknowledgment that we no longer need the neat Hollywood ending. There is only awareness: the attempt to grapple with the horrors of the past is all that anyone can hope to accomplish” (Insdorf). Insdorf states that Hollywood aims solely for the hope that audiences will be alerted, not necessarily entertained. She argues that Hollywood is concerned about creating the film so that it can serve as an exact portrayal of the past. Therefore, Insdorf thinks that Hollywood is finished trying to take non-fictional stories, recollections, and experiences and turning them into “Americanized” versions. She explains that the Holocaust films that have been released including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Defiance, and The Reader describe the actuality with precision. “American films have done a noble job telling World War II stories in ways that illuminate rather than exploit the inherent drama” (Insdorf). This shows that the American filmmakers genuinely care about the Holocaust and wish to enlighten audiences with its truth. Moreover, “by the late 1970s and 1980s, Americans had grown accustomed to images of violence from the Vietnam War, so Holocaust films could challenge more concretely the limits of what we could bear to watch, even if they usually found some way to give viewers a Hollywood catharsis” (Insdorf). Insdorf explains that Americans, because of the exposure of the variety of war films, are able to watch the reality of the Holocaust on screen. Hollywood is able to capture all of the intense moments in history where people experienced the absolute worst situations. She explains, “having lived through our own (much, much smaller) moment of senseless death on September 11, 2001, perhaps Americans are now ready to examine the darker, more ambiguous elements of tragedy. These films are hardly devoid of Hollywood tropes, however” (Insdorf). During the Holocaust, men, women, and children were ultimately defeated by the Nazis, brutally murdered and tortured to death. Insdorf argues that filmmakers will portray everything onscreen without any fixations and no “Hollywoodizations” that would make the event appear more appealing or entertaining. Hollywood looks primarily for the benefit of making films entirely history based, and the filmmakers’ only focus is to alert the audience of what happened in the past, even if the films do not attract a huge audience and a large sum of money. Although Insdorf proves an excellent point, Hollywood is generally known to change real events and stories in order to produce a successful, alluring film, lacking truthfulness and realization.  

The Holocaust completely transformed the way society sees the world. This period in time resulted in the death of more than six million people in the Jewish community, also including Gypsies and homosexuals, who the Nazis, brainwashed by Adolf Hitler, believed to be inferior. The Nazis in Germany brutally murdered, humiliated, and tortured a vast amount of people. The Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals were evacuated from their homes, stripped of all possessions, separated from their families, and sent to specific concentration (extermination) camps across Germany where they were incarcerated; they were required to be servants, slaves, forced laborers, and sometimes medical experiments. In other words, every person was treated as if he or she was not a human being. The result was a vast genocide of people through neglect, starvation, assault, disease, gas, maltreatment, or all of the above. The Holocaust easily represents the most sickening and appalling event in world history because of its tragedy, horrific extremities, and overwhelming cruelty exhibited by the Nazis. The reality of the Holocaust is alarming, and hard to grasp. Furthermore, because the event was so catastrophic, Hollywood’s attempts at making it appear as exact as it actually was often times fail.

Considering the Holocaust was such an important and alarming time, the popularity of the subject has been overwhelming over the years. People who were not apart of the tragic event seek to learn more about it, and want to gain knowledge of everything that happened. In order to do so, people read novels and journals about it, and there are also many Holocaust films that have been released over time. Too often, people who do not know much about the Holocaust use these Hollywood films to gain a better understanding of the event. However, films are generally “Hollywoodized” meaning that they do not necessarily portray the realness of the Holocaust. The films created about the tragedy do not come anywhere close to how horrible and devastating the actual Holocaust was. For example, “major films such as Schindler’s List are teaching people about the Holocaust, but actual history is not gained through the images of such a film. For films to overcome some of their problems, they need to retain more of a relationship with historical reality” (Hakakzadeh 7). People who watch Holocaust films, such as Schindler’s List, hope that they will gain a better understanding of the Jews’ experiences at the concentration camps, but they do not realize that no film can even begin to compare to what really happened. “Specifically, films based on the Holocaust are changing the way the actual event is viewed. They are making the Holocaust more universal, trivial, and entertaining. More importantly, actual history is omitted in order to entertain” (Hakakzadeh 7).  Instead of teaching the world about what actually happened in the Holocaust, filmmakers aim for a successful source of entertainment. By doing this, people are unaware of the fear, terror, and suffering that the Jews constantly breathed in, day in and day out. The beatings and torture that the Jews had to go through every single minute of the day cannot be explained through “Hollywoodized” films because filmmakers often circumvent the disgusting reality in order to attract a wider audience. Moreover, filmmakers truly focus on making sure their films are extremely entertaining in hopes that they will make a large sum of money. This causes the idea of the Holocaust to become a mere example of entertainment rather than a piece of history that affected millions of lives.

American filmmakers research the Holocaust but never actually get the feeling of what went on behind the gates of the concentration camps. There is no film that can ever express the true terror and hatefulness that occurred. The problem is, without creating a film that shows the actuality of the event, nobody will ever know how much the Jews went through, and how much respect they really deserve. “The United States, however, has moved to the forefront of this debate, contributing to what some analysts characterize as the “Americanization” of the Holocaust. This process involves the United States adopting an event as its own despite having little or no relation to it initially” (Hakakzadeh 7). There is no comparison between the intense scenes in Holocaust films compared to the intensity in Germany in the mid 1900s. “Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, for one, argues that the Holocaust cannot be represented, because ‘whoever has not lived through the event can never know it, and whoever has lived through the event can never fully reveal it’” (Hakakzadeh 8). Especially coming from someone who was apart of the Holocaust, it is a fact that no scenes in films can ever come close to the pain and sufferings that actually occurred. Therefore, the fact that the films do not come anywhere close to explaining the situations perfectly, allows people to understand how much of a tragedy the Holocaust was. As Judith E. Doneson once said, “Films offer the possibility that some of this world can be explained, in the hope that no one will be forced to understand—to experience—such conditions again.” That is the main goal that filmmakers should set for films concerning the Holocaust. They should create films so historically accurate that it will capture the hearts of people who did not experience it, instead of thinking about the popularity of the film itself. Creating a film about the Holocaust is much more rewarding than any amount of success or money because it is a chance to show the world the heartbreaking event that so many people had to go through, many of them not surviving.

         The Holocaust has impacted the lives of millions of people throughout world history. Its value and remembrance will never disappear. The importance of the event portrayed through films is absolutely necessary. The Holocaust deserves to be described with accuracy and precision, displaying the actuality of the devastation that affected an indefinable number of people.