America and the Memory of the Holocaust 1950-1965

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Deborah E. Lipstadt

AMERICA ANDTHE MEMORY OF THEHOLOCAUST, 1950-1965

To say that the Holocaust has become a central symbol of the twentiethcentury, particularly for American Jews, s to state the obvious. This con-

frontation with catastrophe has become a mythic element of AmericanJewish identity nd has served both a positive and a negative purpose. Ithas become a stimulus for motivating Jewish identity. But, in certain sit-uations, it has been allowed to assume a dominant role thereby dis-torting the true nature of Judaism and becoming the prism throughwhich the Jewish world view is refracted. This article explores the emer-gence of the Holocaust on the American agenda -both Jewish andnon-Jewish-during the two decades following World War II.

The prominence of the Holocaust in American Jewish identity isparticularly noteworthy since throughout the 1950s and most of the1960s it was barely on the Jewish communal or theological agenda. Incontrast to today, there were virtually no courses on the topic. Therewere no more than a few commemorations of Yom HaShoah, or books,conferences, peeches, nd museums dedicated to exploring hehistoryand significance f the Holocaust. An examination fJewish eriodicalsreveals few articles on the Holocaust. These Holocaust commemora-

tions which were held were generally ttended only by survivors. on-survivors ho attended remembered eeling ike they were crashingfuneral."' urvivors ho came to this ountry n the later 1940sand the1950s were often discouraged from discussing heir xperiences. Theywere told Americanswere not nterested.2

That the Holocaust had such a limited overt mpact on the Ameri-can Jewish community uring this period is particularly oteworthygiven hat, ontrary opopular mpression, t wasnot totally bsent from

the American popular cultural agenda. In contrast o what has oftenbeen the general mpression here were a significant umber of movies,plays, elevision roductions, nd books on the subject wellbefore theend of the 1960s.

In April 1959,theJewish aily Forward oted that, s "happens everyyear," pecial showsmarking assoverwould be broadcast on televisionand radio. Among the shows cheduled to be aired was an installment fCBS'sreligion eries, LookUpand Live,dedicated to the topic of the de-

ModernJudaism 6 (1996):195-214? 1996byTheJohns Hopkins University ress

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196 Deborah E. Lipstadt

struction f the Warsawghetto. ABC'sreligion eries, Directions, road-cast The Final ngredient, play by the author of Twelve ngryMen. Theplay depicted the attempt f inmates f the Belsen concentration ampto celebrate a Passover Seder. But these were not the only televisionshows on the topic. The popular television how, This s Your ifede-voted nine segments o the Holocaust in the period between 1953and1961.4Judgment t Nuremberg as a successful elevisionproduction be-fore t was made into a movie n 1961. n 1957 the respected televisiondrama show,Playhouse 0,aired Homeward orne, showabout survivorsof the Holocaust. In 1959AlcoaGoodyear heater's roduction of ThirtyPieces fSilver oncerned Holocaust refugees. n 1960Playhouse 0 pro-duced Rod Serling's n the resence fMineEnemies. hat same year sawthe production f Millard Lampell's play, TheWall.And, n the spring f1961 television viewerswere able to watch portions of the Eichmanntrial.

Some of the early plays,books, and television productions on theHolocaust won substantial ttention. oremost mong them were TheDiary of AnneFrank,which reached Americans n the form of a book,play, nd movie, nd WilliamShirer's TheRise nd Fall of heThird eich,which, hough not solely oncerned with he Holocaust,did pay seriousattention o Hitler's persecution of the Jews nd the German plan toleave Europe Judenrein. n addition Katherine Anne Porter's hipof ools(1962), auded by the NewYork imes ookReviews one of the best booksof the past hundred years, painted a highly ritical portrait f Germanattitudes owards ews.At least seven books on Eichmann appeared in1962.

This particular kind of attention wasespecially ignificant ecausemuch of it was generated by the non-Jewish orld and, consequently,could have suggested to the Jewish ommunity hat the external, .e.,non-Jewish, merican public, thought he Holocaust worthy f consider-ation. Nonetheless, ven as these books, television hows, nd moviescaptured the attention f a significant ortion of the American public,the Holocaust did not emerge as a factor n the construct f AmericanJewish dentity.Writing n 1957,Nathan Glazer observed that AmericanJews did not seem particularly nterested n or motivated by the twomajor events n recentJewish istory: heHolocaust and the creation ofthe State of srael.5 n a 1961symposium ponsored by Commentary ag-azine on "Jewishness nd Younger ntellectuals," nly two of thirty-oneparticipants ited the Holocaust as having had a significant mpact ontheir ives.That same year n a similar ymposium n Judaismmagazine,the twenty-one articipants irtually gnored the Holocaust.A perusal ofvariousJewish ocal newspapers nd publications from the period re-vealslittle mention of the Holocaust or serious discussion of ts mpacton contemporary ewish dentity.



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AmericandMemory f theHolocaust 197

There re a variety f explanations or his henomenon. irst ndforemost s thatAmericawasnot ready o confront he ssue.From heend of the waruntil he

early960s,

"can-do," ptimistic pirit er-vadedAmerica. hose whohad returned rom he warwere oncernedwith uilding family nd a career, otwith welling n the horrors fthe past.Soldierswho iberated ampsor who came to camps hortlyafter iberation nd took pictures ocumenting heir xperiences amehome odiscover, ften o their reat ismay, hat heir riends nd fam-ilywerenot nterested n "those hings."6ut thiswasnot ust a functionof the homefront's istaste or gruesome opic. Americans ere n-

gagedn

obtainingmaterial

oodsnd

achieving oalsthat

heyever

had before nd, n many ases,never reamt would e theirs, .g., ol-legeeducations, omes, ars, nd televisions. verything,ncluding a-bies,wasbeingmassproduced. he postwar oomwas n full wing. tdid not eemto be an appropriate ime o focus n a painful ast, par-ticularly pastwhich eemed o be of no direct oncern o this ountry.This vent adtranspired n another ontinent. t had been committedby another ountry gainst an-other" eople.What relevance id ithave orAmericans?

In fact, number f thepopular ultural roducts f theperiod redistinguished y hefact hat hey ad, s much s was possible n ightof the opic t hand,happy ndings. he 1955Broadwayersion f TheDiaryofAnne rank,whichwon the Pulitzer rize for drama, was writtenby two Hollywoodplaywrights, rances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.Recruited otransform hebook nto play-in a movewhich ontin-ues to generate controversy o this day'--they essentially e-Judaizedthe

story y removingmanyf Anne's wn references o her

Jewishidentity." here was little horror n the play and nothing that wouldupset audiences' emotional or psychological quilibrium.9 hey alsoAmericanizedhe tory y nding t on an optimistic pbeatnote.Theynot only voided nyreferences oAnne's ltimate ate-which num-ber of survivors ho awAnne n the camps ndicatewasexceptionallypainful nd terribly onely-but presented heultimatemessage f theHolocaustas one of hope and faith n the ultimate oodnessof human-

ity.he

playoncludeswith voiceover

roclaimingnne's amous b-

servation hat In spite of everything stillbelievethat people are reallygood at heart." At which point her father, who has ust returned fromthe camps, is humbled by her optimism nd replies, "She puts me toshame." n fact, Anne wrote hose famous ines before her experiencesin Auschwitz nd Bergen-Belsen,where first he watched her belovedsister ie as a result f starvation, isease, and exposure to the elements,and then uccumbed to the same herself. Would she have been inclinedto write uch uplifting ines at that time? t is doubtful. But the play'sAmerican reviewers roved themselves otally bliviousto that point. n



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fact, hey eemed to miss or dismiss he fact that this play was about atragedy f cataclysmic roportions. One described himself s feeling"exhilarated,

proudto be a human being" as he left he theater.'0 e-

spite the fact ll the characters n it are doomed to death, another notedthat the play had a quality f life bout it, "glowing, neradicable ife-life n its warmth, tswonder, ts pasmsof anguish, nd its wildand flar-ing humor."" imilarly, hen the diary was made into a film, loomanddoom were eschewed. n the film's onclusion Otto Frank declares, asthe police break in and the hiding place is discovered: For two yearswe've ived n fear; from now on we'll ive n hope."12 t was an ironic, fnot absurd, way o end the production given hat, xcept for Frank him-self,none of the others ived on at all, in fear or in hope.

A similar ttitude was evident n a 1953episode of the wildly opu-lar This s Your ife,which wasdevoted to the story f Hanna Kohner,Holocaust survivor. Kohner's husband, father, nd mother were allkilled at Auschwitz. he settled n Hollywood where her second hus-band, who escaped from Germany prior to the war, was a Hollywoodproducer. This show was one of the earliest treatments y Americantelevision f the topic. t too eschewed gloom and doom and ended ona note of "good overcomes ll"-particularly f that good isAmerican norigin. The episode concluded with he host, Ralph Edwards, aying othe survivor, The never-to-be-forgotten ragic xperiences of your ife,Hanna, have been tempered by the happiness you've found here inAmerica. .... This is your ife,Hanna Block Kohner. To you n your dark-est hour America held out a friendly and."'"

Apparently mericans ould only address this topic within n opti-mistic and uplifting ontext. People had to be left with a feeling ofhope. Bruno Bettelheim made a similar point when he recalled how n1939,upon his arrival n America shortly fter his release from con-centration amp, he tried to tell Americans bout his experiences. Hewas told by most people, including some psychiatrists o whom hespoke, that he wassuffering rom prisoner psychosis ecause he con-tended that the SS were not "demented sadists.., or monsters" butwere n most cases "banal ... but nonetheless deadly effective." e waswarned that his theories were "apt to mislead Americans." ettelheim'scontention hat he actions of the SS and other Germans were part of apremeditated master plan and not the haphazard actions of a few ndi-viduals "met with little acceptance" in this country. t was, he con-tended, "just too contrary oour humanistic rame f reference""14

But there wasyet nother factor-a political one-which promptedAmericans to turn awayfrom n active confrontation ith Germany'swrongdoings. here was a new enemy on the horizon: the communists.Not onlywasthere new enemy present but alsoAmerica depended ona newally,Germany, oserve s a buffer oprotect oth Western urope



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America nd Memory f the Holocaust 199

and the United States from Sovietonslaught. There waslittle nclina-tion to call attention o the wrongdoings-even those that had beencommitted nder a previous regime-of this ally. n fact, whole newimage was forged for Germany y government fficials nd journalistsalike. Postwar vents uch as the Berlin airlift, hich asted close to ayear, erved to portray Germany, nd particularly erlin (which only afewyears earlier had been the symbol f the worst f the Third Reichand the place where Hitler made his last stand) as heroic, freedom-loving, nd, most mportant, nited by an intense contempt for total-itarianism.'5 During the airlift, tories circulated of American GIsparachuting andies paid for ut of their wn pockets nto Berlin o thatthe children f that itywould not have to suffer nnecessarily. ccord-ing to the report, he children never sked for hembut were "grateful"when given these sweetsby the soldiers.'6 When the blockade ended,General Lucius Clay, who for four years, first s Deputy Commanderand later as Commander-in-Chief, eaded the American military ov-ernment n Germany, eturned o the United States. n an address toCongress he paid tribute o Germans n general nd Berliners n partic-ular. Although he acknowledged hat t was difficult ither to forget rforgivewhat the Germans had done in previousyears, here had been achange. The people who, under the rule of a dictatorship, ad startedan aggressivewar had now made a very different hoice. According toClay,when given second chance, the people of Berlin had chosen free-dom.'7 n short, heenemy had been reborn.

The more American politicians nd military eaders began to thinkof the USSRas America's major enemy and as the greatest hreat topeace, the more likely hey were to favor not only softer peace termswith Germany ut German military xpansion.Among thosewho ncreas-ingly elt his waywere liberals who might therwise have supported aharsher attitude towards Germany.'8 American Jewish organizationsstrongly bjected to this more conciliatory ttitude owardsGermany.They were particularly istressed y the commutation f the sentencesof Nazi war criminals yAmerican military ribunals.'9 n addition theylooked in vain for ome indication hat Germany elt degree of contri-tion about what had occurred. What they aw instead was a growingGerman antagonism owards he DPs and a web of bureaucratic prob-lems as Jewish property wners tried to reclaim their property n Ger-many. AmericanJewish rganizations were acutely ware of having tobalance their esire for more punitive olicy owardsGermany gainstthe growingAmerican foreign olicy conviction hat ur old enemy wasour new ally even as our old allywas our new enemy.20 AmericanJewsoften found themselves marching o the beat of a different rummerwhen it came to post-war ttitudes toward Germany. n 1950 ElliotCohen, the editor of Commentary agazine,delivered n address n West



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Berlin n which he lambasted Germans for their silence, as of a grave,"and for demonstrating a vacuum of sentiment" when it came to the

murder f EuropeanJewry. e wonderedWhere re the words f fellowympathy,nguish nd ntrospection,fdiagnosisnd healing, f regeneration ndwisdom,hat ome f usex-pectedfrom ourmen of religious hought nd spiritual eadership,from our cholars, rom ourhistorians nd poets nd novelists nthis olossal istoric ragedy?21

Despite American Jewish concerns that Germany had failed to trulyconfront ts unprecedented cts of

brutality,here was little hat could

be done to stop the growing belief in America that a soft-and everincreasingly ofter-peace imposed on Germany would better serveAmerican nterests.22 his growingAmerican reluctance o focus atten-tion on Germany's cts of persecution nd murder wasapparently e-hind the State Department ecision that The DiaryofAnneFranknot beperformed t the 1956Paris drama festival. espite growing uropeaninterest n the play, nd a tradition hat had been established everalyears earlier that the play which received the Pulitzer prize would beproduced in Paris, the State Department, earful hat Franco-Germanrelations might e damaged by the production, xerted pressure opre-vent ts staging.2" State Department objections not withstanding, heplaywasproduced in Germany nd Austria ater that year.)

Bythe early 1950sHollywoodwasbeginning oportray Germans na positive ight. Filmmakers tressed the sufferings f the Germans-who were clearly ifferentiated rom he Nazis-and presented hem sinnocent victims f a few diabolical men who had gained control of anentire country. Not only were they nnocent but in many cases theywere-or so the films laimed-unaware of the atrocities eing commit-ted in their name. Such was the case in the film daptation of TheYoungLions 1958).24One of the first movies of this genre was TheDesert ox(1951),the story f Field Marshal Rommel. n it Rommel waspresentednot only s a heroic military trategist ut as one of those who-seeingthe folly f Hitler's ways-breaks with him and participates n the July1944 assassination ttempt. At the end of the movie Rommel commitssuicide, an act designed not only to show his great ntegrity ut to pre-sent him as a "good" German, s opposed to a Nazi. (Allthis wasHolly-woodfiction. ommel had loyally erved he Reich since 1935 but was by1944critical f the futile military ndeavors n which Hitler wasengag-ing. He never participated n any aspect of the attempt o assassinateHitler. The conspirators, owever, ad listed him as the supreme com-mander of the army f their oup was successful. Consequently, e wasvisitedby twogenerals who delivered Hitler's ultimatum: ither ommitsuicide or face a trial before he Volk ourt nd the threat f punishment



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to his family. ommel took the poison which wasoffered o him.) Thefilm's ortrayal f Rommel was generally met with praise by reviewers.Some of them

placedthe movie within he

argercontext f

contempo-rary American foreign olicy ssues.The reviewer n Films n Review p-plauded the film, escribing he story s the "celebration of a Germangeneral's virtues n an American motion picture .. a reasonable, evenlaudable incident n foreign olicy."25 ne of the few dissenting riticswasBosleyCrowther f the New York imeswho, appalled by the rave re-viewsthe film eceived,devoted two columns to it, describing t as hav-ing "a strange disregard orthe principles nd the sensibilities f thosewho suffered nd died in the cause of defeating German aggression nWorld War I."26According oCrowther hefilmwasa "tenderized Holly-wood laudation of the man who sparked the Afrika Korps"when n facthe was"the eader responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thou-sands of British roops" and someone who oyally upported Hitler untilthe military idebegan to turn.27

This attitude-that the past was best rewritten r, at the least, eftunspoken-was at the heart of General Lucius Clay'scounsel to Ameri-can Jews o maintain ilence about the Holocaust and Germany's uilt.In a conversation egarding he situation f Jews n the American zonein Germany, General Clay told his adviser on Jewish ffairs, rofessorWilliamHaber:28

the anti-Germanism mong theJews n Germany s far more bitterthan he anti-Semitismmong heGermans... well youfolks n the[Jewish]eadership ave ot responsibility,fyou verwant o buildbasefor evived ntellectualnd emotional nd economic ealth, ouhave

gotoforget

hatappened.29In fact, s shall be demonstrated n subsequent pages,Jews id not need

much persuading okeep silent.30But it was not ust the fight gainst communists utside the territo-

rial borders of the United States which ed many AmericanJews o be-lievethat ilence about the past was an efficacious olicy.Events lose tohome also helped persuade them. AmericanJews were eft feeling un-easy by the attempt of the House Un-American Activities ommittee

(and its counterpart n the Senate under Senator McCarthy) ofind ndferret ut communists n American public life and the tremendous t-tention given to trials uch as that ofJulius nd Ethel Rosenberg. Someof the Rosenbergs' upporters ried to paint their prosecution s a sinis-ter conspiracy gainst Jews."'According to this scenario, not only wasthe struggle gainst heRosenbergs n antisemitic onspiracy ut t alsorelied on the same tactics he Nazis had used to subdue the ghettoes fEastern Europe, i.e., the "old technique of the Jewish ribunal." ewswere "judged byJews" nd "sent to death byotherJews."32eborah Dash



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But it was not only AmericanJewish rganizations which harboredthe fear that Americans t large would associate the Rosenbergs with ll

Jewsand, in turn, ssociate all

Jewswith communism.41

udge IrvingKaufman, who presided over the Rosenberg trial, privately xpressedhis concerns, s an "American nd aJew," bout the propaganda effortsto save the Rosenbergs. The campaign claimed that the government'scase against hem nd other communist ympathizers asreally thinlyveiled antisemitic ampaign.42When sentencing he Rosenbergs, Kauf-man charged that, by putting he A-bomb nto the hands of the Rus-sians, they had caused "the communist ggression n Korea, with theresultant asualties

exceeding 50,000." Theyhad,

throughheir cts of

"betrayal,... altered the course of history o the disadvantage of ourcountry."43 Similar sentiments urfaced during the McCarthy hear-ings.)44 Established groups within the Jewish community elt ncreas-ingly compelled to differentiate etween the Rosenbergs and theAmericanJewish ommunity.

The identification f West Germany with the enemies of commu-nism and with he heroic defenders f democracy persisted hroughoutthe 1950s. But then certain political strains

beganto

developbetween

the United States nd Germany. hese tensions prompted ertain our-nalists, ntellectuals, nd writers o focus on Germany's egacy s the heirof Nazi Germany s opposed to the heroic mage of an anti-communist,Berlin airlift, ostwar Germany.

It was against this background hatWilliamL. Shirer's Rise nd Fallof heThird eich ppeared in 1959. Shirer rgued that Nazism had beena virtually redictable outcome of German history. e found a histori-cal continuum n Germany hat began with Martin Luther and culmi-nated in AdolfHitler. Looking back to Bismarck, hirer postulated hatthe roots of the Third Reich were to be found not in the aberrationswhich possessed Hitler's everish rain" nor n worldwide olitical ndeconomic conditions. The ideologyof the Third Reich was, n fact, he"logical continuum" f German history nd wasin harmony with ong-standing German traditions. n MeinKampfHitler et out his blueprintfor what he planned to do once the Nazi party ame to power. Shirer r-gued that the Nazi leader's "philosophy however demented, had itsroots .. deep in German ife."45 ccording o Rise nd Fall,the Germanpeople supported Nazismbecause it was a reflection f their most basicbeliefs.46

But the success of this book had not been a foregone onclusion. nfact, William hirer's ublishershad twicerejected his dea of a book onthe Third Reich,once in 1954 and again in 1955.They did so despite thesuccess of his previousbook, Berlin iary, ecause they were convincedthat Americans had lost interest n reading about the history nd mis-deeds of Nazi Germany. A number of other publishers howeda similar



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lack of nterest. When the book finally ppeared under another publish-er's mprint t was onger-1,250 pages-and more expensive-ten dol-lars-than most other books on the market. t contained close to

fortypages of source notes and a lengthy ibliography. Given this, few ofthose involved with ts publication, ncluding Shirer himself, xpectedit to be a commercial success. Their expectations were dramaticallywrong. n its first ear t sold over a million copies. The book not onlyreached the bestseller ist, but t stayed here for over a year.When con-densed and serialized n Reader's igest, t won an even arger udience.47In paperback t sold over one million copies despite the fact that t wasthe thickest

aperbackever

printednd cost more than a dollar. Ulti-

mately t became one of the best sellingnonfiction istoricalworks f alltimes.48

The book's success reflected, t least in measure, n increased will-ingness on the part of segments of the American public -includingmost prominently mong them reviewers f Shirer's book-to call upthe memory f Germany's vils and to question its willingness o con-front hem. The interest n Shirer's book may also have been linked tothe crisis n German-American elations which, t the end of the 1950sand beginning f the 1960s,reached their owest point since the end ofWorldWar I. Tensionsbetween Germany nd the United States volvedwhen Washington ndicated that t might e inclined towards form fdetente ith he USSR. At one point Secretary f State Allan Dulles sug-gested that heUnited Statesmight ccept a change n the status uo re-garding West Berlin and allow East German, as opposed to Russian,control of traffic o the city.49 his tension-laden ituation id not dissi-pate during the Kennedy administration when Chancellor Adenauerpublicly enounced a series of compromise proposals under considera-tion by Moscowand Washington. Moreover, t appeared that he UnitedStatesmight ccept Russiandemands for recognition f the Europeanterritorial tatus uo, something heWest Germans, who hoped for theultimate eunification f Germany, pposed.50 Bythe summer of 1962,German-American elations had reached their owest point since theend of the war.

An outbreak f antisemitic andalism n West Germany-which edto copycat ncidents n other parts of the world-and the discovery hatformer igh-ranking azi officials eld important osts n the West Ger-man government einforced he conviction n certain American circlesthat Germany had not completely ivorced tself rom ts past. This vi-sion of an unrepentant Germanywasbolstered orAmericans y spateof novels nd booksdepicting country un bypeople who not onlyhada Nazi past but who also felt no remorse for what had happened thereless than two decades earlier.51

At the same time another event thrust Germany's Nazi past onto



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center stage. In May 1960 Israel captured Adolph Eichmann and spir-ited him out of Argentina. His capture and subsequent trial were giventremendous media

attention.52 early very ailypaperin America ran

at least one editorial on the trial when it began and a significant um-ber ran several n close succession,despite the fact that the disastrousBayof Pigs invasion nd Soviet pace successes were competing or di-torial pace at the same time.53 our months efore he end of the trialGallup poll revealed that 87 percent of the American public had heardabout the trial.54 olls from he time of the trial ndicate that Americanyouth were more awareof the trial han theywere of the "normal run of

events.""55Though,it should be

noted,more

peopleknew about the

death of Gary Cooper (93%) than about the trial.]56 ignificantly, ostpeople who were aware of the trial pproved of ts being held.57

While the media did devote extensive ttention o Eichmann, ncontrast o Shirer, t did not see a continuum f German history s re-sponsible for Nazism. Virtually no newspaper connected Eichmann'sdeeds to German history r culture, s Shirer had done. In fact, hepress'sinclination was to do the exact opposite. Reluctant o create the mpres-sion that he current

Germanywas

synonymousith he Third Reich, t

explicitly xonerated West Germany nd its people. The Hearst paperstypified he general reaction n the press when they xpressed the con-cern that the trial would lead the American public to "falsely ssociatethe great majority f contemporary ermans with Nazibarbarities.""58

The press was disinclined to link one Germany with the other be-cause-the current tension in German-American elations not with-standing-in the eyes of most American newspapers, ommunism wasthe

contemporaryheir to Nazi totalitarianism.

ypically,he San

Bernadino, California un wondered why, f Eichmann had been calledto the bar of ustice, "other killers-the power-mad despots who or-dered the nhumane laughter n Budapest and the terrible enocide inTibet-still are deemed fit company with which to negotiate."59omepolitically onservativeournals contended that hirer's ook as well as aspate of other works which focused on Germany's ast and which ap-peared around the same time were designed to give comfort o Ameri-ca's enemies. The intent, according to this theory, was to reviveanti-Germanism n America nd anti-Americanism n Germany n orderto serve Soviet nterests.

The most bvious eneficiaryfhostilitynd distrust etween mericaand Germany r between ther oncommunisttates, s the Kremlin.Soviet ropagandistsre equallynterestedncreating nti-GermanisminAmerica nd anti-AmericanismnGermany.ndeed hose wo enti-ments have mutually ccelerating nter-action. hen the Germansreadofbooks nd films hat ive false, istorted nd defamatory ic-



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ture f their ountry hey re apt to ndulge n retorts hich, n turn,giveAmericanshe mpression hatGermanys not reliable lly.6o

Hannah Arendt's ichmann nJerusalem, hich first ppeared in theform f articles n the New Yorkernd then as a book, generated ignifi-cant discussion n American ntellectual ndJewish ircles.6'Her chargethat whereverJews ived, herewere recognized ewish eaders, and thisleadership, lmost without xception, ooperated n one way r anotherfor ne reason or another with he Nazis" provoked great ontroversy nthe Jewish ommunity. Subsequent research on the role of the Jewishcouncils revealed that her conclusions were highly mpressionistic nd

not generally ooted n historical act.)62Newsweekbserved how"deeplydisturbed" AmericanJewswere by the series. One of the more vitupera-tiveJewish reactions appeared in a headline in a Midwestern ewishweeklywhichproclaimed:

Self-HatingewessWrites ro-Eichmanneries orNew Yorker agazine63Writing n Commentary, orman Podhoretz accused Arendt not only ofunfairly riticizing ews' ctions during the war but of demanding thatJews be better" han others, e "braver,wiser, obler, more dignified-or be damned." And damned them s what he believed she had done.Moreover, he charged, by substituting he "banal" Nazi for the "mon-strous" Nazi, by making the Jew n "accomplice in evil" rather than a"virtuous martyr" nd replacing the "confrontation etween guilt andinnocence" with "collaboration" between perpetrator and victim,Arendt had translated he story f the Holocaust nto "the kind of termsthat can appeal to the sophisticated modern sensibility."64 ut it wasnot ust among Jews hat her series of articles nd the subsequent book

provokeddebate. Lambasted n the New York imes ookReview yPenn-sylvania upreme CourtJudge MichaelMusmanno, witness t the Eich-mann trial nd a judge at the Nuremberg rials, ichmann n Jerusalembecame a topic of discussion n the Times.65 usmanno's reviewgener-ated well over one hundred etters o the paper. The NewRepublic,heNationalReview, ommentary,nd the New Yorker ere among the publica-tions which continued their nalysis f both the book and the responseto it for number of weeks.66PartisanReview escribed the book as hav-

ing provoked s much controversy s any other work t could think f nthe last decade.67Writing n the NationalReview ver a year and a halfafter he articles first ppeared, one reviewer bserved that t was rarefor series of articles r a book to "arouse so many passionsand so pro-longed a discussion."'6

Public opinion polls and interviews onducted after he conclusionof the trial uggested hat neither he trial nor the debate overArendt'sbook generated sustained nterest n the Holocaust among Americans

in general and AmericanJews n particular. n fact, despite the exten-



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America ndMemory f theHolocaust 207

sive media coverageof the trial, ts mpact seems to have been limited.While an extensive portion (77%) of the general population thoughtthe trial was a

good thing,ew

mongthem

had, bythe end of the

trial,an accurate knowledge of some of the most basic information whichhad been transmitted y the trial, .g., that six millionJews had beenkilled.According o an extensive tudy f one large American city, nly20 percent of the white population knew and believed that ix millionhad actuallybeen killed. What the trial did do was to turn the UnitedStates nto a large classroom.No event ince the Nuremberg rialshadfocused n such a dramatic way n the attempt f the Nazisto annihilatethe

Jewish eopleand

yet elativelyew

peopleseemed to have absorbed

its more mportant etails.Similar, though not identical, conclusions might be drawn about

theJewish ommunity. WhileJewswere certainly more aware and moreaccepting of the information onveyedby the prosecution during thetrial, t does not seem to have had more than a temporary mpact. Anexamination of the indices of Jewish magazines and periodicals fromthe period indicates hat here was a momentary lurry f nterest n theHolocaust in

generaland in Eichmann in

particular.However the im-

pact seems to have been of imited duration. No communal commemo-rations merged as a result, no Holocaust memorials were proposed bylocal communities, nd virtually o courses were ntroduced n universi-ties or schools.

Evenamong AmericanJewish ntellectuals nd religious eaders thetenor of the conversation mong Jews did not change dramatically.When Commentaryonducted another ymposium n 1966 on the "Con-dition

ofJewishelief" the editors did not mention he Holocaust n the

five engthy uestions that hey istributed o the thirty-eight abbis ndtheologianswho were participating. nly a smallnumber f the respon-dents made reference othe Holocaust.69

The seeming failure of the Holocaust to have had a sustainedimpact on the public consciousness an be explained in part by the ab-sence in America of an intellectual, political, and emotional atmo-sphere conducive to a prolonged and intensive rappling with many ofthe ssues related to the Holocaust. As has been noted n this rticle heSovietswere still he primary bject of concern. Jews n general and sur-vivors n particular were still ubject to severe criticism or demandingthat Germany confront ts past. By so doing, critics contended, theywere reviving nti-German feelings nd giving succor to communistforces.

It wasnatural, ndeed nevitable hat hebarbarous rimes f theNazis hould eave behind legacy f deepand bitter atred mong

some of those who felt dentified n faith nd blood, f not by still



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closer ies of relationship nd friendship, ith hevictims f thesecrimes... But hard oreof rreconciliables,onvinced hat othinggoodcan come outofGermany, emains. ere one findsmuch f theorganizing riving orce ehind he nti-German ampaign nd also agooddeal of ts mass udience.7"

Those critical of this trend condemned these books because they notonly concentrated eaders' ttention n the gruesome ast" but ed themto "associate the image of Nazism with the image of Germany." hesecritics ttributed his pate of books to "the left-wing, nti-Communistinclinations f a number of publishers, uthors, reviewers." y calling

upthe

memoryf Nazi

Germany heywere

creating"smokescreen o

hide the terrors f the Soviet enemy."71or manyAmericans emember-ing the Holocaust was still politically ncorrect hing o do.

But Eichmann's capture and his subsequent trial did have a long-term mpact. n terms f a more broad-ranging opular response, heseevents did not serve to open up the floodgates of memory. They, to-gether with the many books, plays and movies on the topic may, how-ever, have been responsible, t least n part, for aying he groundworkfor what would become an intense nterest n the Holocaust

usta few

yearshence. Arendt's ook mayhave had a similar mpact-both amongthose who adored it and those who abhorred t. For the first ime anarray f ntellectuals egan to grapple seriouslywith he ssues raised bythe Holocaust. These matters ngaged the attention f that portion ofthe population "most disposed to become involved n public affairs"72Journalists, cholars and intellectuals egan to examine the Holocaustin a more profound way han they had since the end of the war. Subse-

quently,when the Holocaust did

emergeon the

Jewishommunal and

religious genda, they were more prepared to address ts mplications.In the early 1960sAmerican ocietywasnot yet receptive o such a

development.A sea-change n the nature of American ocietywas neces-sary n order for broad range of American Jews ofeel empowered toaddress the Shoah nd to see its own fate n terms f the history f thisevent. t would take a cataclysmic vent within heJewish ommunity, nthe form f the Six DayWar and the upheavalson the domestic front s-sociated with Vietnam

protest.t would also take the rise of American

ethnicity n the 1970s nd the coming of age of a post-Holocaust, ome-what elf-righteous eneration f youngAmericanJewswho had, as a re-sult of the Vietnam War, been schooled in the politics of protest tobegin to ask, in an adaptation of the line from the Haggadah, Whatmeaning do these events have for us?"And as AmericanJews began toincreasingly ngage in the act of remembering, portion of the generalAmerican populace began to do the same.

EMORY UNIVERSITY



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11. Walter Kerr, NewYork erald Tribune, s quoted in Rosenfeld, American-ization," . 37.

12. The filmmakers ried a different nding which depicted Anne in a con-centration amp. The reaction of the audience wasso disquieting hat heir de-cision to create a "hopeful" film was reinforced. How Cheerful s Anne rank?"VarietyApril 1, 1959)as cited in Ilan Avisar, creening heHolocaustBlooming-ton, 1987),p. 190.

13.Jeffrey handler, This isYour Life,' pp. 41,51.14. Bruno Bettelheim, Eichmann: The System, he Victims," ewRepublic(June 15,1963),p. 25.

15. The blockade began onJune 24, 1948 and ended on May12,1949. t costthe ives of forty-five merican nd British oldiers. At ts height, lanes landedevery 1.8 seconds. Eugene Davidson, TheDeath nd Life f GermanyNewYork,1959),p. 218.

16. Davidson,Death nd Life fGermany . 212.17. NewYork imes,May18,1949.18. Shlomo Shafir, American ews nd Germany fter 945: Points f Connection

and Points fDepartureCincinnati, 993), p. 12.19. Ibid., p. 13.20. Ibid., p. 15.

21.Elliot

E. Cohen, "What Dothe Germans

Propose toDo?"

Commentary(September, 950),pp. 225-26.22. Moses Moskowitz, The Germans and the Jews: Postwar Report, the

Enigma of Germany rresponsibility," ommentaryJuly, 946),pp. 7-14.23. DeTelegraaf ay 12, 1956, s cited n Barnouw, The Play," . 80.24. Avisar, creening f the Holocaust, . 110.See Avisar's nalysis of Holly-

wood's treatment f the adaptation of rwin Shaw'sTheYoung ions.Shawwrotehis book to address what he considered to be one of the worst fflictions f mod-ern society, ntisemitism. he movie, he believed, ubverted his original nten-

tion ibid., pp. 111-116).25. Films n Review, ol.2, No. 8 (October, 1951), pp. 50-51 as cited n Avisar,Screeningf heHolocaust, . 110.

26. BosleyCrowther, The Desert Fox,"NewYork imes, ctober 18,1951.27. Idem, "Curious Twist," ewYork imes, ctober 28, 1951.28. One of the innovations f the postwar eriod was the creation of a post

of Jewish advisor to the American military ommand. These advisors bothlooked after he needs of the 200,000Jewish Ps who remained on German andAustrian oil and provided the American Jewish ommunity with nformation

regarding German sentiments owards he DPs and a broad array f other mat-ters f nterest o the Jewish ommunity. hafir, merican ewsnd Germany, . 11.29. Ibid., p. 13.30. In fairness oClay, t should be noted that though he counseled Jews o

forget, e did not believe that Germans should do likewise. n a meeting withJewish epresentatives nJuly 949,Claystated that the moment hat Germanyhas forgotten he Buchenwalds nd the Auschwitzes, hatwasthe point at whicheveryone ould despair of any progress n Germany." bid., p. 18.

31. There is a certain historical rony o the attempt y American commu-nists to paint the Rosenbergs s Jewish ictims f capitalist orces.During this



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America ndMemory f theHolocaust 211

period, show trials with a definite ntisemitic ias were being held in variouscommunist-bloc ountries, ncluding Czechoslovakia, ast Germany, nd the So-viet Union. The Doctor's Plot n Moscow n 1949had been only the first f a se-ries of such events. n December 1952eleven mostly ewish defendants wereexecuted in Prague as part of the Slansky rial. Rudolf Slanskyhad been thesecond most powerful igure n the Czech communist arty nd government.)At the same time Paul Merker, non-Jewish erman communist eader, wasar-rested by the East German regime. Merker held the politically ncorrect-fromthe communist tandpoint-view that the "Jewish uestion" i.e., the nexus ofantisemitism, he Holocaust, and the role of Jews n European society) was atthe heart of the class struggle nd the communist fight gainst fascism. Hemaintained his view even when German communism defined tself n

opposi-tion to a "Western, apitalist, nternational, iberal,Jewish onspiracy."Merkerwas denounced in 1950and held in prison from 1952to 1956 for his support fZionism and his emphasis on antisemitism. ventually e was partially eha-bilitated by the communists. effrey erf, "East German Communists nd theJewish Question: The Case of Paul Merker," erman Historical nstitute, cca-sional Paper No. 11, 1994, p. 18.

32. Howard Fast, The Rosenberg Case,"L'Humanite, ovember 14, 1952, asquoted in Ronald Raydosh ndJoyce Milton, TheRosenbergile NewYork, 1983),

p. 351.33. Deborah Dash Moore, "Reconsidering he Rosenbergs: ymbol nd Sub-stance n Second Generation AmericanJewish onsciousness," ournal fAmeri-can Ethnic istory Fall, 1988),p. 28.

34. Victor . Navasky, amingNames NewYork, 1980),pp. 115-116.35. Raydosh nd Milton, Rosenbergile, . 352.36. AmericanJewishearbook,ol.56 (1955),p. 620.37. Shafir, mericanJews nd Germany, . 16.38. There were actually woriots, ne on August 27 and a second on Sep-

tember 4, 1949. Paul Robeson, whose pro-Soviet iewswere well known, hadbeen scheduled to appear in concert on the first ate. The concert was pre-vented from occurring because a group of protestors locked entry nto thepicnic grounds where the function was to be held. Stones were thrown, utomo-biles overturned, nd a number of those who had come for the concert werebeaten up. The following eek, on Labor Day,approximately 5,000visitors p-peared at a rescheduled conference. Accompanied by their own guards, re-cruited according to the American ewish earBookfrom eft-wing nions, thevisitors rrived n private ars and chartered buses. After he event fights nceagain ensued, cars and buses were stoned, nd racial epithets were hurled. Anti-semitic racts were distributed nd antisemitic tickers were placed on cars atthe Labor Dayevent. American ewish ear ook, ol.52 (1951),pp. 62-64.

39. Naomi Cohen, NotFree oDesist Philadelphia, 1972),p. 348.40. American ewish ear ook, ol.54 (1953),p. 95.41. Not all Jewish rganizations dopted as vigorous stance as the Ameri-

can Jewish Committee. B'nai B'rith did not conduct an anti-Communist am-paign within the Jewish community. n contrast to the American JewishCommittee, t did not work to prevent ewishCommunist organizations rombeing admitted to Jewish ommunal coordinating bodies. In 1952,when Mc-



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Carthy was gaining an extremely high profile, the Anti-Defamation eague(ADL)chose to honor Senator Herbert Lehman, who had emerged as one ofMcCarthy'smain opponents. The following earADL

passeda resolution on-

demning McCarthy's iolation of traditional American afeguards f humanliberty." he same resolution ffirmed DL'sopposition to Communism nd itsconviction hat here wasa "Communist onspiracy odestroy emocracy n theUnited States." eborah DashMoore, B'nai B'rith nd the hallenge f thnic ead-ership Albany, 981),pp. 226-227.

42. Marc E. Berkson, The Case of Julius nd Ethel Rosenberg:Jewish Re-sponse to a Period of Stress" thesis, Hebrew Union College-Jewish nstitute fReligion,NewYork 1978), s cited n ibid., p. 32.

43. Trialtranscript, p.

1613-1614 squoted

inRaydosh

ndMilton,

Rosen-berg ile, . 284.

44. RoyCohn, McCarthyNewYork, 1968),pp. 249-250;Howard Rushmore,"Young Mr. Cohn,"American ercury February, 953),pp. 67-74.

45. William L. Shirer, TheRise nd Fall of heThird eich: AHistory fNazi Ger-many NewYork, 1960),p. 163.

46. Shirer, Rise nd Fall,p. 134.47. Reader'sDigesthad a monthly irculation of over 12 million. Gavriel

Rosenfeld, The Reception of William L. Shirer's TheRise and Fall of heThird

Reich n the United States and West Germany, 960-1962," ournal f Contempo-rary istory, ol.29 (1994),p. 100.48. John Tebbel, A History fBookPublishing n the United tates, ol. IV, The

Great hange, 940-1980(NewYork, 1981),p. 388 as cited n GavrielRosenfeld,"Reception of Shirer's Rise nd Fall," . 101.

49. Roger Morgan, TheUnited tates nd West ermany, 945-1973 (London,1974),p. 89.

50. Morgan, United tates nd West ermany, p. 97,112-115.51. Norbert Muhlen, "The U.S. Image of Germany, 962, as Reflected n

American Books,"Modern ge Fall, 1962),p. 420.52. The trial began in April 1961and concluded in August f that year. Theguilty entence was rendered n December and in May, fter he sraeli SupremeCourt rejected his appeal, he washanged.

53. TheEichmannCasein theAmerican ress, nstitute f Human Relations,PressPamphlet eries, p. 9.

54. In addition to the Gallup poll a series of in-depth nterviews ere con-ducted with pproximately ivehundred residents f Oakland California n thesummer of 1961.84 percent of those sampled met the minimum riterion f

simple wareness.Given the general weaknessdemonstrated yAmericans on-cerning knowledge f foreign vents, his s a striking tatistic. azarsfeld, p. 5,19-21.

These statistics alidated srael's nd particularly rime Minister avid Ben-Gurion's objectivesfor the trial. t was designed to mete out ustice, acquaintpost-Holocaust enerations with heera, and, aboveall, serve pedagogicalpur-pose. Analysis f the American press coverage of the trial n this country ndi-cates that t fulfilled he latter woobjectives. n a letter o a member of theIsraeli Knesset, srael Galili,Ben-Gurion wrote:



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America ndMemory f the Holocaust 213

I see the importance of the fact that Adolf Eichmann has been cap-tured and willbe put to trial before n Israeli court not so much as anachievement f the efficiency nd outstanding bility f the sraeli Se-curity fficers.... but rather hat t has made it possible for n Israelicourt to reveal n detail the tragedy f the Holocaust, n a public opentrial so that sraeli youth who grew up and were educated after heHolocaust know the facts of the incredible tragedy, bout which theywere until now only cantily nformed. urthermore t will ensure thatknowledge of the tragedy will have its impact on public opinionthroughout he world.

Davar, May27, 1960, p. 9, as quoted in AkivaW. Deutsch, TheEichmann rial nthe yes f sraeliYoungstersJerusalem, 974),p. 18.

Echoing Ben-Gurion's xpectations or he trial, he sraeli Ministry f Edu-cation and Culture circulated letter ight efore he trial which tressed ts his-toric nd educational significance.

It is not a feeling f revenge which guides us when witnessing he pro-ceedings of the trial but the aim to uncover before the whole worldand before ourselves, he dimensions f the tragedywhich our peopleexperienced.

Ministry f Education and Culture, Jerusalem, ircular etter f April 19, 1961,as cited n ibid., pp. 18-19.

55. George Salomon, "America'sResponse to the Eichman Trial,"AmericanJewish ear ook, ol. 63 (1962),pp. 8, 9, 103.

56. Charles Y. Glock, Gertrude J. Selznick, nd Joe L. Spaeth, TheApatheticMajority: Study asedon PublicResponsesothe ichmann rial NewYork, 1966),pp. 20, 28.

57. Ibid., p. 134.

58. Eichmann ase n theAmerican ress pamphlet), p. 29.59. San Bernadino Sun,June 5, 1962. See also the Baltimore News-Post,pril13, 1961.The editorial n the Baltimore News-Postppeared in other Hearst pa-pers. bid., p. 35.

60. William Henry Chamberlin, The Revival of Anti-Germanism," odernAge Summer, 962),p. 278.

61. Hannah Arendt, AReporter t Large: Eichmann nJerusalem," heNewYorker, ebruary 6, 23; March 2, 9, 16, 1963. These articles were published asEichmann nJerusalem: Report n the anality f vil NewYork, 1963).

62. Arendt's nalysis of the behavior of the Jewish ouncils n the ghettos,which was based in the main on secondary ources and written efore virtuallyall of the major research n the councilshad been conducted, was criticized otonly for ts findings ut for ts tone. Her friend Gershom Scholem, the eminentscholar withwhom he had worked n the post-war eriod on the EuropeanJew-ish Cultural Reconstruction, escribed her work n a letter o her as "heartless,frequently lmost neering nd malicious." n what must have been a devastatingcomment for Arendt, given her past close relationship with Scholem, and hisstature n the academic world, he declared its tone to be one pervaded by "flip-



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pancy." Eichmann in Jerusalem: An Exchange of Letters between GershomScholem and Hannah Arendt," ncounter 22January 964),pp. 51-56. She wasalso bitterly riticized y Martin Buber for misrepresenting is position on thetrial. She could have, he charged, asily scertained t from material publishedby the Hebrew press or by sking him directly. cholem, "Postscript," n the Wakeof he ichmannTrial NewYork, 1964),p. 61.For additional nformation n theJewish Councils, see Isaiah Trunk, Jewish esponsesoNaziPersecution: ollectiveand ndividual ehavior n Extremis NewYork, 1979),and idem,Judenrat: he ew-ishCouncilsn Eastern urope nder aziOccupationNewYork, 1972),neweditionwith ntroduction yStevenT. Katz (Lincoln, 1996).

63. Newsweek,une 17,1963,pp. 94-95.64. Norman

Podhoretz,Hannah Arendt n Eichmann: A

Studyn the Per-

versity f Brilliance:' CommentarySeptember, 963),pp. 201,208.65. Arendt misstated Musmanno'srole at the Nuremberg nd Eichmann tri-

als. NewYorker, pril 27, 1964,p. 108.66. Michael Musmanno, "Man with an Unspotted Conscience," New York

Times ookReview, ay19,1963,pp. Iff. For a response olicitedby the editors fthe BookReview romArendt nd a reply romMusmanno as well as an array fletters o the editor ee NewYork imes ookReview, une 23, 1963,July 4, 1963;NewRepublic, une 15, 1963,June 29, 1963. Ernest van den Haag, "Crimes

AgainstHumanity," ationalReview, ugust 27, 1963, pp. 154-157.For responsesto van den Haag's review ee September 10,24, 1963;October 22, 1963. Furtherdiscussionwasgenerated n the National Review year ater when the magazinepublished a follow p article on the book. See Max Geltman's Hannah Arendtand Her Critics" NationalReview, ovember 17,1964,pp. 1007-1012.See also"Talk of the Town,"TheNewYorker,uly 0, 1963,p. 17.

67. "Editor's Note," artisan ReviewSummer, 1963),p. 210.68. Geltman, p. 1007.69. Milton Himmelfarb, The Condition f Jewish elief New York, 1966);

Glazer,American udaism, . 172.70. Chamberlin, Revival"p. 278.71. Muhlen, "U.S.Image of Germany," p. 421,426.72. Glocket al., Apathetic ajority, . 169.See, for xample, Lionel Abel "The

Aesthetics f Evil," artisan ReviewSummer, 963),pp. 211-230.

Documents

America and the Memory of the Holocaust 1950-1965