Abstract

This article addresses the issue of how the Holocaust is represented and remembered in contemporary culture. The central argument of this article relates to the fact that although the Holocaust has become so dominant in our popular culture, this current engagement operates at a rather superficial level. In recent decades the Holocaust has been brought to mainstream public attention through high-profile films like Schindler’s List, yet I would question how accurate a picture of the Holocaust we are offered by such representations.I believe that the Holocaust has only achieved its central place in the popular consciousness because it has been adapted and softened to public taste. I would argue that it is only through the accounts of those who survived the Nazi ghettos and concentration camps that we can get a true understanding of the Holocaust as it impacted on the individual. Yet the voice of the survivor has been marginalised due to the preference society has shown for the soft-option Holocaust portrayed in popular novels and films. The Holocaust is routinely reduced to the level of a sentimental, teary melodrama. The horror of the Holocaust has been diluted to shield us from its harsher realities, popular representations tend to focus on the few who survived rather than the majority who were killed. Ultimately a false picture of the Holocaust has been created, and the authentic voice of the survivor has been sidelined, with worrying implications for Holocaust memory.