The Shoah on screen - Representing crimes against humanity - Volume I

Description

Over the past twenty years or so, there have been an increasing number of fi lms about the Shoah, reaching more and more viewers. It is as if, fi fty years later, a tacit partial ban on cinematic representation of the only systematic, largest numerically, and most heinous genocide in the entire history of humanity has been lifted. This gap has allowed the Shoah to assume its true historical magnitude and the cinema its true place among the arts. The Shoah marked a return to barbarity at a time when civilisation was making progress. Although the problem of evil is much older, the Shoah has removed it from the metaphysical sphere and turned it into a contemporary, real-life collective experience. It also stimulates thought on other crimes against humanity, committed before and since against other human groups.

Keywords

Shoah

Holocaust

Cinema

History in films

World War II

Commemoration

History in art

Jewish History