The Holocaust Experience
Encyclopedia
The Holocaust Experience is a 2003 documentary
by Oeke Hoogendijk that takes a serious, slightly critical, look at Holocaust museums around the globe. The film asks where the line between remembering the genocide and exploiting the dead lies and if it's already been crossed.
Sixty years after the Holocaust, survivors are dying and concentration camp infrastructure
is beginning to decay. Deliberate efforts must be made in order to preserve the past. Few would argue the importance of remembering; but is there something wrong with learning about the Holocaust through blockbuster films, or with hopping off a tour bus, in fanny pack and sunscreen, into a concentration camp?
The Holocaust Experience moves between the noisy, hyper-realistic Holocaust museums in America and the decaying ruins of Auschwitz to quietly critique the role of both as proper memorials. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., animated tour guides give rehearsed speeches that try to both shock and entertain their groups, while in Poland
, tourists arrive at Auschwitz on buses with “Cracow Tours” painted on the side, and pose for pictures at the entrance gate, below the notorious sign reading “Arbeit Macht Frei
” (work makes you free).
Auschwitz was once the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, where 1.1 million people were murdered. But sixty years have passed since the world learned of the genocide that took place there, and now the documentary’s camera captures icy, poetic shots of beautiful young girls jogging around the camp, little boys playing soccer nearby, and a woman hanging up her laundry to dry right next to its fence. Earth that was stained with the blood of over a million people is now casually trod on everyday.
The truth is, survivors agree, if you did not live through the Holocaust, you will never know their fear, and never fully understand the horrors. “I try to paint a picture that will stir them up, get them thinking,” a survivor who serves as a tour guide says, “but I never expect the audience to understand what it was like.”
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by Oeke Hoogendijk that takes a serious, slightly critical, look at Holocaust museums around the globe. The film asks where the line between remembering the genocide and exploiting the dead lies and if it's already been crossed.
Summary
Putting Holocaust victims’ hair on display became a controversial exhibit for the United States Holocaust Museum, when survivors protested that the display would be an exploitation of those who had died. The Holocaust Experience looks at this and other moral questions surrounding what has become an industry of remembrance.Sixty years after the Holocaust, survivors are dying and concentration camp infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
is beginning to decay. Deliberate efforts must be made in order to preserve the past. Few would argue the importance of remembering; but is there something wrong with learning about the Holocaust through blockbuster films, or with hopping off a tour bus, in fanny pack and sunscreen, into a concentration camp?
The Holocaust Experience moves between the noisy, hyper-realistic Holocaust museums in America and the decaying ruins of Auschwitz to quietly critique the role of both as proper memorials. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., animated tour guides give rehearsed speeches that try to both shock and entertain their groups, while in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, tourists arrive at Auschwitz on buses with “Cracow Tours” painted on the side, and pose for pictures at the entrance gate, below the notorious sign reading “Arbeit Macht Frei
Arbeit macht frei
"'" is a German phrase, literally "work makes free," meaning "work sets you free" or "work liberates". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners...
” (work makes you free).
Auschwitz was once the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, where 1.1 million people were murdered. But sixty years have passed since the world learned of the genocide that took place there, and now the documentary’s camera captures icy, poetic shots of beautiful young girls jogging around the camp, little boys playing soccer nearby, and a woman hanging up her laundry to dry right next to its fence. Earth that was stained with the blood of over a million people is now casually trod on everyday.
The truth is, survivors agree, if you did not live through the Holocaust, you will never know their fear, and never fully understand the horrors. “I try to paint a picture that will stir them up, get them thinking,” a survivor who serves as a tour guide says, “but I never expect the audience to understand what it was like.”
See also
Other Holocaust Documentaries:- Who Shall Live and Who Shall DieWho Shall Live and Who Shall DieWho Shall Live and Who Shall Die is a 1982 documentary that asks whether the United States could have stopped the Holocaust. The film combines previously classified information, rare newsreel footage, and interviews with the politicians who were in office at the time, to tell a behind-the-scenes...
- Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz
- LubomlLubomlLuboml may refer to:* Liuboml, a city in Ukraine* Luboml: My Heart Remembers, a documentary...
- Shadows of MemoryShadows of MemoryShadows of Memory is a 2000 documentary by Claudia von Alemann that describes the rise and fall of Hitler from the perspective of a Nazi supporter—Alemann's 84-year-old mother.-Summary:...
- The Jewess and the CaptainThe Jewess and the CaptainThe Jewess And The Captain is a 1994 documentary, directed by Ulf von Mechow about a Holocaust love affair between Ilse Stein, an eighteen-year-old Jewish girl, and Willi Schultz, the Nazi captain in charge of the Minsk ghetto....
- Paradise CampParadise CampParadise Camp is a 1986 documentary about Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Unlike other Holocaust camps, Jews entered Theresianstadt willingly, even eagerly, because Nazi lies led them to believe it would be a peaceful retreat. The deception continued even after it was clear...