The Holocaust and American public memory, 1945-1960

Abstract

Until the 1960s, many scholars assert, most Americans' awareness of the Holocaust was based upon vague, trivial, or inaccurate representations. Yet the extermination of the Jews was remembered in significant ways, this article posits, through World War II accounts, the Nuremberg trials, philosophical works, comparisons with Soviet totalitarianism, Christian and Jewish theological reflections, pioneering scholarly publications, and massmedia portrayals. These early postwar attempts to comprehend the Jewish tragedy within prevailing cultural paradigms provided the foundation for subsequent understandings of that event.