The Holocaust in American life
By: Peter Novick
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 373
ISBN-13: 9780395840092
Subjects: American Foreign public opinion; Historiography; Geschichte 1945-1999; Jews; Public opinion; Influence; Auswirkung; Öffentliche Meinung; Holocaust; Rezeption; Attitudes; Judenvernichtung; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Publieke opinie
Description: "How has the Holocaust come to loom so large in American life." "Peter Novick illuminates the reasons Americans ignored the Holocaust for so long - how dwelling on German crimes interfered with cold war mobilization; how American Jews not wanting to be thought of as victims, avoided the subject. He explores in detail the decisions that later moved the Holocaust to the center of American life: Jewish leaders invoking its memory to muster support for Israel and to come out on top in a sordid competition over what group had suffered most; politicians using it to score points with Jewish voters." "With insight and sensitivity, Novick raises searching questions about these developments. Have American Jews, by making the Holocaust the emblematic Jewish experience, given Hitler a posthumous victory, tacitly endorsing his definition of Jews as despised pariahs? Does the Holocaust really teach useful lessons and sensitize us to atrocities, or, by making the Holocaust the measure, does it make lesser crimes seem not so bad ? What are we to make of the fact that while Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars for museums recording a European crime, there is no museum of American slavery?"--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-352) and index.
Table of contents: title: We knew in a general way --; title: If our brothers had shown more compassion --; title: The abandonment of the Jews --; title: The DP camps have served their historic purpose --; title: That is the past and we must deal with the facts today --; title: Not in the best interests of Jewry --; title: Selfhating Jewess writes pro-Eichmann series --; title: A bill submitted for sufferings rendered --; title: Would they hide my children? --; title: To bigotry no sanction --; title: Never again the slaughter of the Albigensians --; title: We are not equipped to answer.