La Patum: resistència sota l’opressió en 1960s Espanya franquista

The collective memory of the West in the 1960s invokes images of the protests in Prague and Paris with American hippies dictating the fashion and lifestyle. However, in Francoist Spain, a much quieter resistance was taking place. Spain has occupied Catalonia since 1714 and from 1939 to 1975, Francisco Franco’s dictatorship aimed to destroy Catalan culture in hopes to create a homogeneous Spain. All over Catalonia, the development of a modern Catalan society challenged the Franco regime and increased common awareness of the Catalan oppressed state[1]. The focus of this paper will be on the small northern Catalonian town of Berga, and their actions in the years immediately after Franco’s visit to the region. Berga is home to La Patum, a multi-day festival to celebrate Corpus Christi made up of numerous performances from salts [characters]. This festival dates back to the medieval times and today is the basis of Berga’s tourism and blatant displays of catalanitat [Catalan-ess] (for a fuller description, please see the endnotes[i]). In the 1960s, under Franco, the Patum took on new symbolism as it separated itself from its Catholic roots and embraced unspokenly and secretly, the national ideals and anti-Regime rhetoric which were gaining momentum throughout Catalonia. Through this, the search for an authentic self and women’s role were renegotiated through the body. Occurring at the same time as the outspoken, public and sometimes unpredictable, student protests of the spring 1968, La Patum of the late sixties operated much more subtly and calculated under colonization as it was used as a space to challenge the authority and explore the self.

Spanish Oppression

Franco’s Spain was to be Catholic, united and Spanish – in language and culture. His visit to Berga on July 1 1966 illustrates these intentions. During his visit he was greeted by signs and an archway [pictured] proclaiming “Franco! Berga is with you!” and “Peace and progress”[2]. Nine-teen sixty-six marked 27 years since the Spanish civil war, (a war Franco started), in 1939 left Berga (and all of Catalonia) with deep scars. Under Franco, all Catalan culture was outlawed (with La Patum being a curious exception) with exile, execution or imprisonment as possible punishments for acts such as speaking Catalan or dancing the sardana[3]. To proclaim that Berga was ‘with’ Franco, was Catalans accepting their role as an ‘other’ and their colonized status[4].

[5]

The Vangaurdia Española (based in Barcelona, the Catalonia capital), grandiosely dedicated the first seven pages of their July 2 1966 edition to Franco’s visit. The paper placed a photograph of the crowded Sant Pere Plaça as the headliner image with the caption “the town of Berga, [tipped into] the street [to] acclaim Franco”[6]. The verb, volcar, used here as “tipped into” has several translations, most of them negative and translate along the lines of “to upset” or “to irritate”. This subtle verb choice may be telling of the (lack of) agency of the crowd despite their cheerful exterior. Several pages later in the same seven page spread, the article states that Franco was met with great cheer which “closed any hint of divisive maneuvers that seeks to disrupt the peace of Spain”[7]. This rather blunt sentence hints to either previous dissent in Berga, or to the growing threat of dissent in Catalonia during this time period. Franco knew that Spain needed Catalonia and in order perpetuate faux-unity, there had to be some concessions to the Catalans.
To appeal to the masses which were in the streets, Franco addressed the Catalan crowd and spoke of the importance of “our” Patum, especially the l’Águila [eagle], was a symbol of their “moral values, for [Catalonian] unwavering and steadfast commitment to the national spirit. […] love of country, […] Spain”[8]. In one speech, Franco cemented La Patum and l’Áglia to Spain and the Catholic Church. Spain further claimed La Patum as their own when in 1967 the ministry of Information and Tourism (the Francoist propagandists) declared La Patum to be important to “national interests”[9]. Removing the catalanitat from the uniquely Catalan festival, and by claiming the region (and resources[10]) as Spain’s, Franco solidified his rule over Catalonia.

Regional Resistance
Franco’s visit to Berga happened near the height of the 1962 to 1967 period of social awareness of the Catalonian cultural oppression. Unlike their European peers, the student movement was not a key factor in this awakening. It may have played a role, as there were student movements in Barcelona however, they were quickly silenced by infighting or the regime[11]. Barcelonian life is not equivocal to Bergdiuan. Berga is geographically isolated with an older, God-fearing, demographic. Therefore, Berga challenged Franco’s narrative within the contexts and institutions Franco permitted and in a form the city could agree with. La Patum, the Church and the body became sites of peaceful and accepted resistance to the Franco regime and Spain.
The Berguedàn Church, as an institution, had a large role in embracing Catalan culture under Franco, especially in the late 1960s. Mossèn Josep Armengou i Feliu[12], a Berguedàn priest was very interested in Catalan society and culture and wanted to ensure its survival. Holding secret Catalan classes for the middle class children and delivering sermons which were filled with “veiled political allusion”, he was arguably the most ‘outspoken’ Berguedàn at the time[13]. He published the first scholarly approach and interpretation of La Patum in 1968. As mentioned previously, the Catalan language was outlawed under Franco, for Mn. Armengou to not only teach it, preach about it, but publish an account of La Patum that, in his view and argument, was “national death and resurrection” was extraordinary[14].
The nation here (in “national death”), refers to Catalonia, a repossession from Franco’s claim that La Patum belonged to the Church and to Spain. The Catalan church by 1969 had completely separated itself from the Franco regime over labour union disputes and by 1970, the Catholic church of Berga withdrew the Catholic procession portion of La Patum[15]. That was the last official tie between the Church and La Patum, a separation which had been in the works since the mid 1960s[16]. This separation allowed the salts and the festival in the Plaça Sant Pere to grow in popularity and become increasingly important to the creation of a Catalonia nation, and not to the Church which was enmeshed with the State.
With the religious aspects toned down and Catalan culture embraced, the Patums of the late 1960s were the celebration of a “people that defends and loves their customs” wrote the same article which announced La Patum’s status as a “national interest”[17]. The Patum of 1967 will be filled with “joy and enthusiasm” continued the article. The Patums’ of years previous were not written with such pride, it is possible to suggest that Franco’s visit in 1966 and the January 1967 decision to include it as a national interest (even if as a Spanish one), sparked a fire of pride in what they had. One father wrote into the Vangaurdia in 1968 and spoke of how La Patum was “growing [Catalan] culture” in Berga and especially in children[18]. The Patum was visibly growing catalanitat through the use of Catalan imagery, mainly colours. On a postcard, it shows els turcs i els cavallers and the male gegants dressed in red and yellow stripped clothing. The thinner strips on the gegants specifically suggest that they are an homage to the (banned) Catalan flag, while at the same time being passable as the Spanish flag’s colours.

            In addition to growing a visible culture, La Patum was also shifting the symbolism. It was important to Berga was to reclaim l’Àguila from the connotations Franco placed onto her. Franco praised her symbolic devotion to the Church and State, Mn. Armengou imagines the l’Àguila as

“[…] an imprisoned princess who embroiders with hope the banner of her liberation, all at once it begins to pull, uncontainable, from side to side, until, its chains broken, it takes broad flight for the serene sky of liberty”[20].

Mn. Armengou’s Àguila is the silent and peaceful Catalan fighter who is slowly breaking free from her chains, from both the State and the Church, and is preparing to fly into a future independent Catalan state. However, the popular rumour is that the finale to l’Àguila’s dance (when she spins over the crouched audience) once “killed a solider” so while she is peaceful, she is deadly[21]. This served as a firm warning to Franco and the State that claimed de facto ownership of her. This symbolism is derived from the same dance Franco saw, a dance which he derived a loyal love of the State. Just like the Catalan flag outfits, the new interpretation of the l’ Àguila, could be argued to be pro-Spanish and Regime if questioned.

Personal expression and the search for the authentic

La Patum was not just a subtle nationalistic act, it was a deeply personal. One could not simply watch La Patum, as being in the Plaça Sant Pere is being part of La Patum[22]. Mn. Armengou described the experience in religious terms as a “baptism of ritual fire which confers upon him who feels it the most authentic certificate of Berguedàn citizenship”[23]. The embrace of Patum’s “authentic[ness]” or “pure[ness]”[24], is important not only to the physical event, the unique salts and dances, but to the participants and their internalization of catalanitat and exploration of self.

In the same spirit La Patum employed resistance to a colonizing force in a much more subdued manner when compared to their Western equivalents, the Berguedàn sexual revolution of the 1960s can not hold a candle to the popular image of communes and “free love”. Berga was not an ideal space for a sexual revolution in the 1960s, the small town mentality and strong church influence thwarted efforts of a sexualized liberation. That was not to say they did not try. Dorothy Noyes author of Fire in The Plaça spoke to participants of late sixties Patums who remarked on the gendered participation and sexual harassment. In the past, when the lights dimmed in the plaça to prepare for the plens, the women were expected to leave. (It is also important to note that there were not that many women in the audience if you the postcard’s demographics as representative). One patumarie[25] recalled “all the men in the plaça clustered around” the women who stayed and “when the lights went out, ui!”[26]. In the throws of the chaos of the plens, in the dark and the blinding light of firecrackers, the women expected groping[27]. One patumarie sheepishly told Noyes that the reason she stayed in the plaça for the plens was because “there’s always some shameless fellow who gooses you”[28]. However, slowly more and more women stayed in the plaça. In this regard, the the experience of La Patum for women in the 1960s was similar to women in other global movements – excluded from participating at an equal level and being at the whim of male gaze.

Instead of sexually, the body was employed to experience a sort of freedom that was new to the young Berguedàns. The younger Berguedàns were born under the Franco regime and the Church, La Patum was the “first occasion of freedom from family” and their watchful eyes[29]. Within the same space sexuality was explored, the plens also served as a space for a beugardian “happening”. To outsiders, plens are a curious display of fire and chaos, but to those inside, it is putting catalanitat into performance[30]. The plens are a uniquely Bergaduan folk figure, watching them is an undeniably “authentic” Bergidan experience, let alone, a Catalan one[31]. The plens increased in number from sixteen in the 1950s to forty in the late 1960s[32]. This increase made the experience of the plens more intense but also allowed more patumaires to participate[33] in La Patum. This participation was a contribution to the ever growing catalanitat present in La Patum and in the hearts and minds of the patumaries.

The embrace and reinterpretation of La Patum on multiple levels (the State, the region and individual) in the late 1960s served many purposes. For Franco, in his attempt to “unify” Spain and colonize Catalonia, he claimed La Patum (with l’Àguila) and Berguedàns for a pro-united-Spain narrative. The same symbolism Franco saw, the Church and Berguedàns then used to their anti-Regime and pro-Catalan rhetoric, while still appearing to support the Regime. Using the Church as a front, Mn. Armengou fostered a sense of catalanitat in the patumaries who in then in turn used La Patum to explore sexuality and their own sense of growing national pride despite Church and Regime opposition.

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Secondary sources:

Balcells, Albert. Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present. Translated by Jacqueline Hall. New York: Springer, 1995.

Noyes, Dorothy. Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2003.

Primary sources:

Armengou i Feliu, Josep. La Patum de Berga: Compilacio de dades historiques, amb un suplement musical dels ballets de La Patum. Berga: Columna/Albí, 1968. Cited in Dorothy Noyes, Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2003.

Aquí Bergudeá. “La visita de Franco a Berga l’any 66 – “Apoteosis en Berga””. Filmed July 1 1966. YouTube video, 3:55. Posted November 14, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQW0o5hJSzI.

“Berga: Las fiestas de “La Patum” declaradas de interés turístico.” La Vanguardia Española, March 30, 1969. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1967/01/15/LVG19670115-034.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016). [Berga: The festival of “La Patum” declared a touristic interest.]

“Exposiciones de pintura en Berga.” La Vanguardia Española, September 21, 1968. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1968/09/21/LVG19680921-020.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016). [Painting exhibitions in Berga.]

“Gran importancia de la Cuenca carbonifera de Berga.” La Vanguardia Española, July 1, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/01/LVG19660701-008.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016). [Great importance of the Bergan coalfields.]

 “Inenarrable recibimiento a Francisco Franco en Berga y Santa Maria de Queralt.” La Vanguardia Española, July 2, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/02/LVG19660702-001.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016). [Inexpressible welcome to Francisco Franco in Berga and Santa Maria of Queralt.]

 Petachrome de la Passola. La Patum: Els Turcs i Cavallers. Prior to Jan 4 1968. Serie II  Núm. 602, Berga.

“Vibrantes y entusiasta recibimientos populares en Berga y Manresa.” La Vanguardia Española, July 2, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/02/LVG19660702-005.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016). [Vibrant and enthusiastic receptions popular in Berga and Manresa.]

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[1] Albert Balcells, Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present. Trans. Jacqueline Hall (New York: Springer, 1995), 157.

[2] Aquí Bergudeá. “La visita de Franco a Berga l’any 66 – “Apoteosis en Berga””. Filmed July 1 1966. YouTube video, 3:55. Posted November 14, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQW0o5hJSzI.

[3] A traditional folk dance, where the dancers dance in a circle.

[4] Dorothy Noyes, Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2003), 165.

[5] Aquí Bergudeá. “La visita de Franco a Berga l’any 66 – “Apoteosis en Berga””. Filmed July 1 1966. YouTube video, Posted November 14, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQW0o5hJSzI, 0:24.

[6] “Inenarrable recibimiento a Francisco Franco en Berga y Santa Maria de Queralt.” La Vanguardia Española, July 2, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/02/LVG19660702-001.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016).

[7] “Vibrantes y entusiasta recibimientos populares en Berga y Manresa.” La Vanguardia Española, July 2, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/02/LVG19660702-005.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016).

[8] “Our city, we can not deny is small for the number of its inhabitants, but great for its traditions, for their moral values, for their unwavering and steadfast commitment to the national spirit, highlighted throughout its history. The eagle there, engraved on the back of the crest, a copy of which appears in our traditional celebration par excellence, La Patum, is the symbol, respected by all future generations of Berga, that love of country, heightened today by the providential circumstance [formal] you are the governing destinations in Spain and imbue our people an era of prosperity and security ever achieved by previous rulers.”; “Berga y Manresa.” La Vanguardia Española, July 2, 1966.

[9] “Berga: Las fiestas de “La Patum” declaradas de interés turístico.” La Vanguardia Española, January 15 1967. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1967/01/15/LVG19670115-034.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016).

[10] Franco’s emphasis on peace and cooperation from Catalans was vital because he was also relying on the coal reserves near Berga for exploitation for Spain. On the day of his visit, the Vanguardia Española ran a thirty-page insert about the region’s coal mines. These were appeals to the Berguedàn (and generally Catalan) working class. The newspaper insert stressed the importance and celebrated “our” (Spain’s and Catalonia’s) coal mines as they would “solve the social and economic problems of the nation”. The Berga coal mines were producing 31% of the nation’s (Spain and Catalonia’s) coal in 1960.; “Gran importancia de la Cuenca carbonifera de Berga.” La Vanguardia Española, July 1, 1966. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1966/07/01/LVG19660701-008.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016).

[11] Balcells, Catalan Nationalism, 158.

[12] Catalan naming traditions gives the child both the father’s and the mother’s family names, in everyday use, the father’s family name is used. Mossèn, shorted to Mn., is the Catalan equivalent to the use of Rev. for Reverend.

[13] Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 176.

[14] Ibid., 179.

[15] Balcells, Catalan Nationalism,163.; Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 176.

[16] Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 176.

[17] “interés turístico,” La Vanguardia Española, January 15 1967.

[18] “Exposiciones de pintura en Berga.” La Vanguardia Española, September 21, 1968. http://hemeroteca-paginas.lavanguardia.com/LVE07/HEM/1968/09/21/LVG19680921-020.pdf (accessed March 20, 2016).

[19] Petachrome de la Passola. La Patum: Els Turcs i Cavallers. Prior to Jan 4 1968. Serie II  Núm. 602, Berga.

[20] Josep Armengou i Feliu, La Patum de Berga: Compilacio de dades historiques, amb un suplement musical dels ballets de La Patum (Berga: Columna/Albí, 1968), 87. Cited in Dorothy Noyes, Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2003), 180.

[21] It is a common saying/story told during La Patum. Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 180.

[22] Armengou, La Patum de Berga, 18. Cited in Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 184.

[23] Armengou, La Patum de Berga, 125. Cited in Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 177.

[24] “interés turístico,” La Vanguardia Española, January 15 1967.

[25] Patumarie translates to “one who does Patum”. In other words, is someone who participates in Patum.

[26] Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 187.

[27] Something that was told to me when I was “learning the ropes” of La Patum. I was also strongly encouraged to not stay in the plaça during the plens and to not walk in the area surrounding the Plaça Sant Pere alone. This gendered division and sexual harassment is a persistent problem. So much that La Patum in 2015 hung posters which translated to “no means no”.

[28] Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 187.

[29] Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 186.

[30] Ibid., 184.

[31] Armengou, La Patum de Berga, 50. Cited in Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 181.

[32] Armengou, La Patum de Berga, 100. Cited in Noyes, Fire in the Plaça, 184.

[33] It is possible to argue that there is no audience in La Patum, as the audience are also participants as they dance with the music and salts, but for simplicity, I have divided those in the plaça into a ‘audience’ who watches and ‘participants’ who are characters in the salts.

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[i]  “The Patum takes place every year during the week of Corpus Christi, between the end of May and the end of June, and comprises several parts: […] the full Patum. The Taba (tambourine), the Turks, Cavallets (papier mâché horses), Maces (demons wielding maces and whips), Guites (mule dragons), the eagle, giant-headed dwarves, Plens (fire demons) and giants dressed as Saracens are all allegorical figures and representations that parade one after the other through the streets, performing different acrobatic tricks and spreading light and music among the joyous audience. All the figures join to perform the final dance, the Tirabol.”
UNESCO. “The Patum of Berga.” Third Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Accessed March 20 2016. http://www.unesco.org/culture/intangible-heritage/38eur_uk.htm.

The Question of the Germans in Jedwabne and Neighbors.

In Holocaust studies, historians look at painful and difficult events to give a voice to those who are gone. Jan Gross in his book Neighbors[1], did just that. The book, published in Polish in 2000 (and later English in 2001) started a national and then international discussion surrounding his claims against the Polish population during war and the use of his limited sources to support his claims. Using trial records from 1949 and 1953, Gross pieced together a story which undermined previously assumed Polish understanding of self-identity based off their national martyr-driven history and was the catalyst to a national self-reflection. The argument which ignited such a discussion was his assertion that the massacre which occurred in the small Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10 1941 was the result of the Polish population freely, and willingly, murdering the Jewish population in a violent and chaotic pogrom. However, many critics such as Dariuz Stola and myself, have stated Gross’ claims regarding the Jedwabne massacre severely underplayed the role of the Nazi Regime in the event because he misread key sources and overlooked known historical narratives. It will be my argument that Gross in his book Neighbours intentionally “misread” and overlooked known historical contexts to illustrate a larger, less explicit argument – the need to question one’s National identity and past actions.

In the book, Gross starts the narrative before the Second World War illustrating the “normalness” of Jedwabne and the nearby village of Radziłów with their Polish and Jewish populations living a relative peaceful co-existence. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet occupied Poland in June 1941, violent assaults began against the Jews such as the multi-day pogrom in Radziłów from which many survivors fled to Jedwabne. In Jedwabne, the new mayor, a Polish man, Marian Karolak and some members of the Gestapo met and came to the conclusion to murder all of Jedwabne’s Jews (45). On July 10 1941 the Jews were ordered to the town square and then forced into a barn that was set on fire, killing everyone inside. The murderers were all “ordinary men” (71) from Jedwabne or nearby, with no “uniformed individual” in sight (52), making them “willing executioners” (78).

Gross’ narrative of Jedwabne acknowledges the Gestapo’s presence either the day before or the day of the massacre but designates their role to nothing more than “taking photos” (47). While there are a lot of unanswered (and unanswerable) questions about the events of July 10, there is a lot of information which can be inferred from general histories of the Second World War and from the survivors’ testimonies. Both of which point to larger Nazi German agency in Jedwabne.

As Timothy Snyder states, the Einsatzgruppen were used as a “tool of persecution” during their invasion and occupation of Poland during June 1941[2]. The Wehrmacht, because of the Nazi regime’s strong anti-Semitic (and anti-communism) policies and attitudes already in place in Germany, saw the Eastern Jews they encountered in Poland to be caricatures of Jewish stereotypes[3]. Under orders to eliminate partisan threats, the Einsatzgruppen killed two thirds of the total number of Jews lost in the Holocaust before 1942, leading the summer of 1941 to be known to modern scholars as the Holocaust of Bullets[4].

After the Wehrmacht and Einsatzgruppen swept through the newly occupied territory, the Gestapo remained to continue the establishment of local “councils”. These councils, such as Karolak’s, are implied to have been authoritative and representative by Gross. However, these councils appeared suddenly and took orders from the Gestapo and had no authority to create them[5]. Gross states that the two “quickly agreed on the matter” (44) but the meeting between the Gestapo and Karolak prior to the massacre was not as much as an agreement and compromise, but more likely an order which if refused, would have seen Karolak’s council out of office.

The idea that the Polish men of Jedwabne spontaneously conducted a “cacophony of violence” (59) to the scale and efficiency in which they did is also questionable and points to more involvement from Germany. Not to say that Poles did not harbor anti-Semitic attitudes prior to, or even during, the War, but the Polish vision of the ‘final solution’ was mass emigration, not genocide[6]. This community as Gross outlines in his first chapter, was relatively peaceful without much ill intent towards each other. The level of violence displayed on July 10 mirrors that of other German led assaults against towns and villages[7]. The Polish men carried out their attack on Jedwabne with an efficient and methodical approach, one that such a mob would not have been able to organically create[8].

Gross’ exclusion of the very real possibility of Nazi intervention in the carrying out of the massacre was entirely intentional for two reasons. First, Gross based his narrative within and on the first hand accounts so he is creating the story without inserting probability. Second, by removing the default “evil” in Holocaust literature, it makes it easier to question morality and National remembrance.

A major criticism of many against Neighbors is that Gross did not consult all the possible archives and documents, especially German ones, giving him a narrow view into the events[9]. However, only the information inferred is what is known to exist, because as Stola claims, there are no German documents that Gross could have consulted[10]. Instead, Gross focused his attention to the primary sources left by survivors and allowed them to tell the story without Gross’ ideas of what he may have thought they meant added in. By doing this Gross allows the survivors to tell their story, the way they remembered it (or wanted to remember it). The testimonies included in the book highlight with detail the individuals the witness knew, giving full names or even home addresses, but those the witness did not recognize, such as the peasants that travelled to Jedwabne for the massacre, are nameless, faceless and grouped together as one (53). If Germans had been mentioned in their accounts, they would have been overshadowed by their acquaintances and friends who they knew personally.

In addition, due to the manner in which some of the testimonies were extracted (given under duress by Communist courts), the Polish men of the town stood at the foreground of the statements as the guilty party. These testimonies have the agency focused on the Polish actors for fear of admitting to collaboration(/treason) with the Nazis and as Gross states the reader needs to be aware that the accused “minimize […] the extent of their own involvement” (14) to their crime of “act[ing] in a manner that fostered the interests of the German state” (12). By attempting to blame the Germans, the accused would have admitted to collaboration. From their knowledge of Soviet rule and prisons from Poland’s 1939 to 1941 occupation and mass arrests and deportations, denouncing your neighbors was a better option than what was to come in Soviet detention.

By keeping the narrative focused on the (presumed) Polish agency and reiterating the Polish “normalness” both of the town and of the men accused, it allows Gross and the reader to explore and reflect on two things: the national identity of Poland and the morality of humanity and its limits or abilities. The assertion by Gross that it was Poles, and Poles alone, who committed the massacre of July 10 1941, began a modern Polish reflection of their national identity[11]. Was Poland still the nation of martyrdom they idealized? The victim in a long tradition of occupation, exploitation and loss, or did the history of Poland also contain atrocities? The book also raises questions about the self – what are individuals capable of? Those in Jedwabne were ‘normal’, ‘ordinary’ men who had families at home but were also capable of brutally humiliating and then burning their neighbors. These questions all become apparent when the Nazis are seemingly ignored. Gross’ removal of the Nazis as an answer no longer allows the blame to be placed onto the “obvious evil” of war time Europe.

Gross’ “oversight” of not including the Nazis as characters in his narration of the events of July 10 1941 in the small town of Jedwabne Poland serves a larger purpose to his argument in Neighbors. His book has two arguments (or explorations), the first is that Polish men murdered the Jedwabne Jewish men, women and children. Although this event probably relied on German interaction more than Gross cares to admit, but whether or not Germany had any influence on the day’s events, it still does not change the fact that the Jews of Jedwabne did not live to see the sunset. The second is an argument was aimed to question the identity that Poland has created for itself. To cause such an introspective discussion, Gross had to ignore the obvious scapegoat to make the argument explicit to the reader that the narrative of Polish martyrdom was flawed and is a romanticized telling of their past. Neighbors ignited a Polish and international discussion about what humanity and ‘normal men’ are capable of committing to their fellow neighbors.

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Bibliography:

Deák, István “Heroes and Victims,” in The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland edited by Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Gross, Jan. Neighbors. New York: Penguin, 2001.

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler. New York: Basic Books.

——-. “Holocaust: The Ignored Reality,” The New York Review of Books, vol. 56, no. 12 (16 July 2009). [paginated according to .PDF on UBCConnect]

Stola, Dariusz. “Jedwabne: Revisiting the Evidence and Nature of the Crime.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 17 no. 1 (2003): 139-152.

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[1] Gross, Jan. Neighbors. New York: Penguin, 2001. All citations to the book are in parenthesis after the quote in-text.

[2] Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 126.

[3] Snyder, Bloodlands, 122.

[4] Timothy Snyder, “Holocaust: The Ignored Reality,” The New York Review of Books, vol. 56, no. 12 (16 July 2009), 2.

[5] Dariusz Stola, “Jedwabne: Revisiting the Evidence and Nature of the Crime,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 17 no. 1 (2003): 144.

[6] Stola, “Jedwabne,” 145.

[7] Ibid., 141.

[8] Ibid., 145.

[9] István Deák, “Heroes and Victims,” in Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds., The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2004), 427.

[10] Stola, “Jedwabne,” 141.

[11] Deák, “Heroes and Victims,” 423.

Discuss roles of different kind of texts and representations in informing, teaching and/or describing prisoners’ experiences in Auschwitz.

There are countless different kinds of texts and representations[1] which are able to inform, teach or describe prisoners’ experiences in Auschwitz. Texts such as newspaper articles, government documents, court transcripts and representations such as television programs, graphic novels and drawings are all invaluable. However, due to limitations of knowledge, time and paper length on my behalf, I will focus on just three texts and two representations of the Holocaust out of the seemingly endless possibilities. The texts represent three different contexts, authors, and styles of writing. The first text I will discuss will be excerpts from Auschwitz commandant, Rudolf Höss’ autobiography/testimony, titled in English Death Dealer. The second will be Tadeusz Borowski’s work of literature about his experiences as a Polish prisoner in Auschwitz, This Way To The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. The last piece of text I will discuss will be Halina Birunbaum’s memoir Hope Is The Last To Die, chronicling her experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz as a young girl. All these works have been translated from their original languages to English. The two representations I have chosen are the Auschwitz’s Album found by Lily Jacobs containing photographs of Hungarian Jews arriving and being “processed” at Birkenau and the film footage shot by Soviet soldiers upon their liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in early 1945.

For these selected texts and representations, I hope to answer several questions which will aid a better understanding of the works. The questions are: Who created this? Why was this work made? What context was this work made? and finally and most importantly, what is its role is in the informing, teaching and/or describing the prisoner’s experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau? From this examination of the author/creator of the works and the “agenda” and soci-political contexts surrounding the works’ existence, it becomes easier to see what the works’ role is in Holocaust education and describing the prisoners’ experiences in Auschwitz[2].

            In command of Auschwitz-Birkenau from May 1944 until January 1945, Rudolph Höss was put on trial in 1947 for his actions. Höss wrote his autobiography in the short period between his sentencing and death.  Published in 1956 as Kommandant in Auschwitz; autobiographische Aufzeichnungen, and later as Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz it is the attempt by Höss to portray himself in a positive light, separating himself from the dynamic of perpetrator and victim and placing himself in the realm of a third party, neither a victim nor perpetrator.  Höss distanced himself by repeatedly asserting that he was only following orders and that “orders are not to be questioned”[3]. Höss’ status of power and leadership in Auschwitz leads to his autobiography to be taken as fact and as an authoritarian voice in Holocaust writings.

Höss wrote his account of Auschwitz with “bureaucratic obtuseness”[4], void of any emotion except for when he pleads to the reader to remember that he is only human. He does this by mentioning his wife, children and their life at Auschwitz. Claiming his family “had it good in Auschwitz” and even that “no former prisoner can say that he was treated poorly in any way in our house”[5], Höss ensures his readers know that he was not a “monster” but instead just man, doing a job. However, from this it raises important questions. What does it mean to be human? Where/when does one stop being a human? These questions are not universally answered and are up to personal interpretation. Consciously, survivors choose what they wish to call the S.S, some like Birenbaum chose “beasts” while others like Zofia Nałkowska chose to call them human. Many factors influence the philosophical decision to strip Höss of his humanity, one but of the factors is the survivors’ and prisoners’ experience of interactions with the guards and officer of Auschwitz.

Written very bluntly, Höss described his opinions and attitudes of the prisoners and the prisoners’ daily activities. His opinions, namely of the Jewish prisoners’ “shows us how heavily Goebbels’ propaganda weighed on Germany”[6]. Höss categorized all the prisoners into groups, no prisoner was singled out or named, but he placed the Jews at the bottom of his prisoner hierarchy. He, and the S.S. protected the lives of guard dogs to a much higher degree than any prisoner, with a dog’s mistreatment being punishable by the S.S. Court[7]. However when Höss witnessed the gassing of Russian prisoners in Block 11 of Auschwitz, he reflected that he was “impressed by the whole procedure”[8]. From these few sections of Death Dealer, it is possible to infer that to the S.S. and the “popular” opinion in Germany was that the prisoners’ were interchangeable and akin to the “vermin” Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minster, portrayed them to be. Höss held these beliefs even after Germany’s defeat and his subsequent trial and execution (at Auschwitz) in April 1947.
Another work written shortly after the second world war, is Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way to the Gas Ladies in Gentlemen, (Pożegnanie z Marią in Polish). Published in 1959, eight years after his death, Borowski’s work of short stories follows a character named Tadek through Auschwitz and Birkenau. Borowski and Tadek were Polish political prisoners. This allowed Borowski privileges not (usually) offered to the Jewish prisoners.

The ability and privilege to be assigned work details such as Kanadakammando, the group who sorted the incoming prisoners’ belongings, in addition to the food packages from family outside Auschwitz, gave Tadek an opportunity to “organize” supplies and items for himself and others. Items such as shoes and food were an invaluable commodity in Birkenau as “whoever has grub, has power”[9]. From his position of “power” as a Kanadakommando, Tadek is able to describe the situation of transports arriving to Birkenau’s ramp.

A particular passage Borowski wrote about the ramp “tests” the reader. In the story, Borowski wrote of a woman who had just arrived to Birkenau who was running away from her child in an effort to live. The reader is to agree with Andrei who is shouting “pick up your child, woman” [10]. The reader judges the woman and it is revealed that the S.S. guard supports Andrei’s actions. From this, the reader is put in the uncomfortable position of thinking and viewing the situation through the eyes of the perpetrators.

Borowski also includes stories about what no one has seen, notably the events surrounding the shooting of Josef Schillinger. This story appears in numerous texts written about Auschwitz, despite not being important to the overall function of Auschwitz. Each text however, has different details – different locations, times of day, reasons, descriptions of the woman. The “truth” is different for each story, but is true for that particular account. If all information and accounts of the woman shooting Schillinger were to be taken as fact, the accounts would invalidate each other. Literature has the ability to write about what the author had heard happened, or what could have happened.

Memoir however, must stay within the realm of what the author had experienced and knew for certian. Halina Birenbaum, while writing her memoir Hope Is The Last To Die (Nadzieja umiera ostatnia), tried to write within the same understanding and knowledge she had as a young girl in the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz (among other concentration camps). Different from Höss and Borowski, Birenbaum wrote her memoir much after the war. First published in 1967, Birenbaum was inspired to write her memoir in response to the 1961 Eichmann trial. Birenbaum citied that the trial allowed her story to no longer be hidden and unknown[11]. A motivation of Birenbaum’s was by writing her story down, it would allow her story to be shared with “her children, [their] friends, and [her] friends”[12].

By making the decision to write her memoir with the same information she had available during the events she is able to portray the “innocent” child victim. This “innocence” gives Birenbaum the ability to evade the reader’s judgement by having a lack of understanding and children are not expected to question rules or “norms”. Through this Birenbaum describes and talks frankly about her life and growing up in a concentration camp. As she only knows her own views, the events, emotions and situations she describes are unique to her. The reader can read and learn from what Birenbaum tells them, but ultimately, her experience can not be assumed for every prisoner in Auschwitz.

Such experiences are Birenbaum’s various relationships and friends during her time at Auschwitz. Birenbaum is rarely alone, even during her long stay in the camp hospital after an S.S. guard shot her. Here she and Abram, a fellow prisoner, fall in love, according to Birenbaum[13]. As she only knew herself and her experiences, she perhaps does not realize that loneliness was leading to the deaths of other prisoners. As her memoir is titled, Hope Is The Last To Die, the information she gained through her life and the ability to reflect on the past, possibly led to her realization of her “luck”.

Any survivor of Auschwitz had “luck” as there was no way to ensure one’s own survival, however, chance, none-the-less, played a major role in Lily Jacob’s finding of the Auschwitz Album. This 56-page photo album held 193 photographs taken by SS photographers. The photos show transports of Hungarian Jews being “processed” at Birkenau in May 1944. While unclear why the photographs were taken, as they are not propaganda or for a personal collection, they are extremely important as they are the only photographs known to exist of the extermination process inside Auschwitz-Birkenau (with the exception of the four photographs taken by the Sonderkommando).

The Auschwitz Album’s photographs give, at the very least, a face to the countless number of individuals who were not able to record their story. A majority who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, never entered the camp, instead went directly to their deaths. The photographs show the Hungarian Jews disembarking from the train, the selections of workers, and people waiting for the gas chamber in a field. These photographs show the highly efficient manner and huge scale in which Auschwitz-Birkenau operated as these photographs were all taken within a few days.

These photographs, and any photograph pertaining to the Holocaust, are important to the creation of postmemory. Marianne Hirsch’s term postmemory is the “sense of living connection” of children of Holocaust survivors to the Holocaust[14]. Photographs allow for the “transmission of events that remain unimaginable” and the events that the survivors are unable to articulate into words or representations[15]. A deep, indexical, connection happens through photographs, especially to family members affected by traumatic events such as the Holocaust. The Auschwitz Album’s photographs were given away to surviving family who recognized those in the photographs prior to its donation to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum in Israel). These photographs “authenticate the past’s existence” and create a sense of “having-been-there”[16].

Similar to photographs in its ability to show the past, is film. Soviet forces who liberated Auschwitz on January 27 1945 were tasked to “as faithfully and vividly as possible record the combat of [the] Soviet Army”[17] Alexander Vorontsov filmed what he saw with little regard for artistic composition or flair. The footage was used as evidence in the war trials against S.S. affiliated personnel. Despite being used as evidence; film footage can not be assumed to be unbiased. The Soviet footage is undoubtedly pro-USSR, and anti-Germany.

While the footage is “truthful” as it shows conditions at Aushwtiz-Birkenau after the S.S. evacuation of January 16 and 17. The Soviet cameramen recorded whatever they felt was important: frozen bodies strewn ground, the emaciated and diseased survivors during a medical examination, the vast amount of prisoners’ belongings hoarded by the S.S. and living conditions within the barracks. Although the scenes within the barracks is a recreation filmed after the snow had melted, the overcrowded and cold conditions of the January weather can be viewed.

The evidence of bias is shown through what the Soviets decided to film. The Soviets held, and filmed, a ceremonial funeral on February 28 1945. The service laid to rest the 470 former prisoners who had been shot during, or died after the liberation. Among those who attended the service were Soviet soldiers and Catholic clergy[18]. The main religion in Auschwitz-Birkenau was Jewish, while the main religion of Poland (which after its liberation from Germany, was controlled by Russia) was Catholic. The filming of the service, was self-serving and was used to create a positive image of the Soviets to the Polish, in my opinion. As well, the Soviet cameramen wanted to film the liberation the way they felt it “should have” happened. Once the former prisoners had regained enough strength, the Soviets refilmed a joyous and energetic welcome of the Soviet army by the Auschtwitz-Birkenau prisoners. Even though this footage was never used, it can be inferred that Soviet army was trying to spin their actions at the liberation of Auschwitz into propaganda for themselves.

Overall, the purpose of these works were never to give a complete over view of the Holocaust and to describe the entirety of the prisoners’ experiences within Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each survivor (or creator of other works) has an extraordinary story, as the “typical” story of the Holocaust was execution. All works created, not limited to the works I examined, about the Holocaust were created for a purpose. From each of these works, the stories told are only applicable to that specific individual. As explored previously in the brief explanation of the death of Schillinger, all facts can only be considered facts within the context of the work. This idea is true for any descriptions given to the reader by the creators of the texts and representations examined previously. From reading numerous works, eventually a “general” picture of the experiences of prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau emerges. However, for each work, an idea emerges of how to inform and teach the Holocaust to the readers. From Höss’ blunt and emotionless descriptions of the prisoners the extent of anti-Semitism in Nazi-Germany can be seen by the reader. Borowski’s story of the woman trying to abandon her child tells the reader not to judge the actions of the prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Birenbaum writes about the “innocent child” that grows up in Auschwitz and questions the readers’ need for victims to be innocent. The photographs of the Auschwitz Album showing the only surviving evidence of the extermination process in Birkenau evokes the power of photographs, especially to the children of survivors. Finally, the Soviet army’s film footage of the liberation of Auschwitz teaches the viewer that even the most “irrefutable” evidence can display both the truth of reality, but can also be deeply sought in political motives. The survivors and creators made works which reflected what they felt was most important to them and what they knew from their immediate surroundings. The texts and representations of the Holocaust can inform and teach the reader through their descriptions and accounts of events which occurred at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The information and teachings are not always clear, but instead they are “between the lines”, hidden within the descriptions and experiences the survivor or creator chooses.

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Bibliography:

Birenbaum, Halina. Hope Is The Last To Die. Translated by David Welsh. Oświęcim: Publishing House of the State Museum in Oświęcim, 2014.

Borowski, Tadeusz. This Way For The Gas Ladies And Gentlemen. Translated by Barbara Vedder. New York: Penguin, 1959.

Hirsch, Marianne. 2008. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today 29 (1): 103-128.

Höss, Rudolph. Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. Boston: Da Capo Press, 1996.

Levi, Primo. Introduction to Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. By Rudolph Höss, Translated by Andrew Pollinger, 3-9. Boston: Da Capo Press, 1996.

“The Liberation of Auschwitz (includes 1945 original Red Army footage).”  YouTube video, 52:16. Posted by “chronoshistory,” January 23, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0RMf2qU18.

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Works consulted:

“The Auschwitz Album.”  YouTube video, 46:59. Posted by “The Berdichev Revival,” April 14, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2pT1dbGs2A.

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[1] Collectively, I will refer to these as “works”.

[2] Albeit, usually I will only explore one main idea or theme the reader can gain from each work due to paper length restrictions. I choose to examine multiple works over a variety of styles, time periods, authors and mediums instead of focusing heavily on one in order to see the scope of works created about the Holocaust.

[3] Primo Levi, introduction to Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, by Rudolph Höss, trans.Andrew Pollinger (Boston: Da Capo Press, 1996), 7.

[4] Levi, introduction to Death Dealer, 3.

[5] Rudolph Höss, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, trans. Andrew Pollinger (Boston: Da Capo Press, 1996), 164.

[6] Levi, introduction to Death Dealer, 7.

[7] Höss, Death Dealer, 151.

[8] Ibid., 156.

[9] Tadeusz Borowski, This Way For The Gas Ladies And Gentlemen, trans. Barbara Vedder (New York: Penguin, 1959), 31.

[10] Borowski, This Way, 43.

[11] Halina Birenbaum, Hope Is The Last To Die, trans. David Welsh (Oświęcim: Publishing House of the State Museum in Oświęcim, 2014), 5.

[12] Birenbaum, Hope, 5.

[13] Birenbaum, Hope, 211.

[14] Marianne Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory,” Poetics Today 29, no. 1 (2008): 104.

[15] Hirsch, “Postmemory”, 107.

[16] Ibid., 116.

[17] “The Liberation of Auschwitz (includes 1945 original Red Army footage),” YouTube video, 2:02-:05, posted by “chronoshistory,” January 23, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0RMf2qU18.

[18] “The Liberation of Auschwitz,” 47:00.

While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust

A book review of Jeffrey Shandler.

In post-war America, the television era emerged as Americans began to understand what happened during the war. The new platform brought evidence and stories involving the war into the household living rooms. This use of story telling allowed the Holocaust to become not only a household word, but a metaphor for moral atrocities such as the Serbian war. The construction of Holocaust memory for many Americans was built from this metaphor and through its portrayal on television. In his book, While American Watches: Televising the Holocaust, Jeffrey Shandler investigates the different methods of how television shaped this American Holocaust memory. His book is divided into three sections, each dedicated to a theme and time period. Creating the Viewer: 1945-1960 focuses on newsreels and early talk-show episodes with survivors, whereas Into The Limelight: 1961-1978 focuses on the war-crime trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, the introduction of the Holocaust into television series’ episodes and the Holocaust mini-series which aired in 1978. Finally, A Household Word: 1979-1995 highlights the survivors through documentary works and how Holocaust memory is being presented in museums around America. Through his exploration of these themes, Shandler supports his main thesis of “the genre’s value as a cultural phenomenon, so as to examine the emergence of the Holocaust as a moral paradigm in American culture and, more generally, the impact of a mass medium on memory in public culture”.[1]

The first section of Shandler’s book, Creating the Viewer: 1945-1960, displays the use of television and film reels in the immediate post war era when many were still trying to piece together the events of the war. While the liberation of the concentration camps were not a strategically important part of the war, Shandler argues that their liberation is an important symbolic event from the course of the war.[2] The symbolism is used both as anti-German propaganda to cast Germans as barbaric, and as American war-time propaganda to idolize the American war efforts on the front lines. The news reels with titles of “Nazi Murder Mills” which induced panic and moral outrage amongst viewers. From these, the issue of just who should watch these films arose. The answer was everyone in order to believe and to understand the events because these films “demanded memory” as they became the basis for American memory surrounding the Holocaust.[3]

In the immediate post-war period, the survivors were curiosities. Their private lives with the aid of their testimonies were brought to the American audiences in a way that made “voyeurs out of everyone”.[4] In addition to the saviour’s private life being broadcasted, their story was also at the mercy of companies who bought airtime and could control the content of episodes. The example given by Shandler of an Auschwitz survivor, Hanna Kohner’s appearance on the television show This Is Your Life. This episode, brought to the audience by a lipstick company, paints a happy narrative of Hanna’s life, omitting difficult truths. The “Hollywood” image gets in the way of the Holocaust authenticity by blurring the fine line of narrative and fiction in order to make a televisable episode.[5]

Shandler’s second section Into The Limelight: 1961-1978, focuses primarily on the use of television and the emergence of a popular narrative of the holocaust in the wake of the Adolf Eichmann war crime trial and the time up to and including the creation of the Holocaust mini-series. Eichmann’s trial was seen as the first major “popular trial” as well was the first international court proceedings to be televised.[6] The Israeli government proudly hosted the trial, and Shandler argues this eagerness was in attempts to claim legitimacy in their independence and ultimately existence through media exposure.[7] Shandler, based on the reporting of the trial, argued there was the need to find the difference between “normal” people and the evil Eichmann and the Nazis he repersented.[8] To make this distinction the broadcasters used close ups of Eichmann’s expressionless face and noted in the their reports of his “reptilian eyes” and “talon like hands” – anything to visually highlight and construct he idea of him being less-than-human.[9] The trial was not only used as a method of firmly implanting the Holocaust into the American consciousness, but to further the agendas of American and Israeli interests. The Americans using the broadcasts to further extend the stance of Germans being distant and barbaric and the Israelis using it to legitimatize their nation-hood.

After the trial, sitcoms and other television programs incorporated the theme of Holocaust. Through the use of the German language, idioms and images and sounds and without the word “holocaust”, writers would use these cues to imply Nazi behaviour. In this time period between the trial and the Holocaust mini-series, genres of television from dramas to comedies to science fiction all used imagery of the Holocaust in episodes.

The capstone in the television programs of this time period to Shandler is the Holocaust mini-series that aired in 1978. Not only did this program popularize the word Holocaust, it also brought American understanding of the Holocaust to the world.[10] Despite the series’ world success (in terms of viewership), it came to be just another “mass produced” drama of “ethical grievance” according to Shandler[11]. Even the nine-hour mini-series was not seen as a major force in the televised versions of the holocaust in the late 1970s due to the sheer volume of content available on the subject allowing the Holocaust to slowly become a household word.

The media began to focus their attention onto the survivors when there was an increase in Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. The final section of Shandler’s book, A Household Word: 1979-1995, focuses on the rise the narrative of the survivor to legitimize the events of the Holocaust. The survivors are often depicted as exoticized, presented as witnesses to strange experiences or are canonization for their noble actions within the war[12].  This status gives the survivor a higher standing in the weight of their authority in their testimony and is evident in the documentary programs aired in the later part of the twenty-first century. As the theme of the Holocaust being a metaphor in television to other American events, (despite the Holocaust not technically being an American event), is shown in the end of this chapter with the juxtaposition of images from the Balkan War beside those from the Holocaust in order to extract an emotional and moral responses from the audience. The book concludes with the point that the construction of Holocaust memory as of the 1990s is so reliant on the use of television, that all the major Holocaust museums in the United States have incorporated television screens into the exhibitions.

Shandler’s background as a media scholar is evident in his work of While America Watches. The scope of the research and films presented in the book as examples is astonishing. With many of the programs and films consulted being produced prior to mass replication, he was able to find and watch multitudes of rare and aging films in order to grasp the full history of the Jewish Holocaust portrayals (as other groups effected by the Holocaust are simply overlooked).  Shandler arranges these films in chronological order, which aids in the flow of his ideas and emphasises the progression of the Holocaust’s representation in American culture. While, the flow is smooth, the transition from chapters seven to eight is awkward as Shandler tries to shift from television programs to the use of televisions in Holocaust museums. With this vast knowledge base, he does not take the easy route in his study of early American television and write it off as a negative, but instead tries to explain how television shaped American awareness and consciousness of the Holocaust without the binary of television being a “good” or “bad” driving force behind American public memory.

While it is necessary to comment and give context to the materials and films used in studies such as these, Shandler often goes into painstaking detail of the entire plot such as in This is Your Life, or into unnecessary detail about production like he does about the Eichmann case. This abundance of detail regarding each example obstructs the argument and loses the impact of its purpose.

While the examples in text are unnecessarily abundant, the examples provided through the photographs in the book lack details. The use of black and white stills from the programs show a glimpse of the reality behind the text, but the lack of colour removes the reader from the full context. Black and white gives the impression of the distant past despite some of the examples that are accompanied by film-stills examples are from the 1980s and were originally aired in full-colour.

In the text of While America Watches, Shandler uses quotes from other scholars and quotes directly from the program being discussed for support of his argument. While this is a valid method of analysis, his quotes and claims are sometimes unattributed to a source. In one instance, he claims that in the Eichmann trial, America had the most in-depth coverage of any other nation in the world.[13] While this claim is set up in the context of discussing the vast quantity of airtime dedicated to the trial, the lack of numbers and data to legitimize this claim detracts from the credibility of the claim. The second example, may simply be a stylistic choice, but the lack of citations for the quotes related to a documentary entitled Verdict for Tomorrow, leaves the reader having to go back through the text in order to find where these direct quotes are coming from.

Jeffrey Shandler’s work While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust, is an examination which thoroughly documents the changing American attitudes and representations of the Holocaust using the medium of television from 1945-1995.  Using major television events such as the Eichmann trial of 1961 and the Holocaust mini-series of 1978, and singular episodes of programs such as Hanna’s appearance on This is Your Life, Shandler crafts his argument against the common argument of television trivializes events. Through his examples, Shandler is able to construct a timeline of representation that incorporates the representation of the holocaust as a cultural phenomenon that impacted public memory from its portrayal on television.

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Bibliography:

Shandler, Jeffrey. While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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[1] Jeffrey Shandler, While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xiii.

[2] Shandler, While America Watches, 5.

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Ibid., 38.

[5] Ibid., 78.

[6] Shandler, While America Watches, 84.

[7] Ibid., 90.

[8] Ibid.,109.

[9] Ibid., 113.

[10] Shandler, While America Watches, 165.; Ibid.,167.

[11] Ibid., 172.

[12] Ibid., 190.

[13] Shandler, While America Watches, 95.