Post by Dan Dare on Dec 6, 2022 18:04:55 GMT
This present thread has nothing to do with holocaust denial, nor even with the specifics of the holocaust itself, but rather with something which seems to me rather more interesting: the dramatic change in the role and the presence that the holocaust has come to assume in western society, and its influence on politics, culture and society in general.
For forty years or more after the actual events in question the holocaust was of primary interest and concern only for some Jews and an extreme fringe of WWII buffs, along with a few iconoclasts who were called 'revisionists' at the time but are now routinely referred to as 'deniers'. Nowadays, in many western countries, including Britain, anyone deemed by the authorities to be a denier is liable to prosecution and imprisonment.
This dramatic change in the presence of the holocaust in civil society is remarkable, not least for its relatively recent provenance. When I was growing up there was practically no knowledge or discussion of the subject, very few books available to the general public, Lord Russell's 'Scourge of the Swastika' and lurid exploitation novels like the (originally Hebrew) 'House of Dolls' being obvious exceptions. There was nothing on the telly whatsoever, nothing in the daily press and nothing in the cinema except perhaps 'The Diary of Anne Frank' in the early 60s.
Fast forwarding to the present, we find the situation has changed dramatically. In terms of media attention we need only look at the numbers of holocaust-themed films and TV programmes which have been produced in recent times. According to Wikipedia in the first twenty-five years following the war a total of 25 were produced in western countries. In the 1970s there were altogether 20, in the 1980s a total of 48 rising to 103 in the 1990s. In the first two decades of the 21st century western movie studios and TV companies have produced 128. It seems that the further the events themselves recede into the past the greater the efforts that are made to ensure that we retain them at the forefront of our consciousness.
In 2000 a publicly-funded multi-million pound Holocaust Annexe was created at the Imperial War Museum and dedicated by the Queen herself. Twenty years later this was greatly expanded at a cost to the taxpayer of £35 million, with the re-opening presided over by the Duchess of Cambridge. Plans for a £100 National Holocaust Memorial in a public park adjacent to the Houses of Parliament are currently on hold but will likely resume when the government gets round to rescinding the 1900s-era legislation that is currently blocking its progress.
Britain of course is not unique in this regard. Every other western country now has officially-sponsored holocaust commemorations of one sort or another, if not actual physical monuments (although most have those too). Curiously though, the three most prominent countries which do not celebrate Holocaust Memorial Day are those in which the majority of victims are now thought to have met their fate: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Also, although perhaps unsurprisingly, there is almost no official or even public recognition that the holocaust even took place in any non-European country. Holocaust commemoration is an exclusively western affair.
We are entitled to ask ourselves why this dramatic turn of events has come about. How did it happen, what is it for, who or what is behind it and - perhaps the key question - cui bono? I think the central question here is whether the present interest in the H has occurred organically, or whether is is occurring as the result of external agency. My own view tends towards the latter.
For forty years or more after the actual events in question the holocaust was of primary interest and concern only for some Jews and an extreme fringe of WWII buffs, along with a few iconoclasts who were called 'revisionists' at the time but are now routinely referred to as 'deniers'. Nowadays, in many western countries, including Britain, anyone deemed by the authorities to be a denier is liable to prosecution and imprisonment.
This dramatic change in the presence of the holocaust in civil society is remarkable, not least for its relatively recent provenance. When I was growing up there was practically no knowledge or discussion of the subject, very few books available to the general public, Lord Russell's 'Scourge of the Swastika' and lurid exploitation novels like the (originally Hebrew) 'House of Dolls' being obvious exceptions. There was nothing on the telly whatsoever, nothing in the daily press and nothing in the cinema except perhaps 'The Diary of Anne Frank' in the early 60s.
Fast forwarding to the present, we find the situation has changed dramatically. In terms of media attention we need only look at the numbers of holocaust-themed films and TV programmes which have been produced in recent times. According to Wikipedia in the first twenty-five years following the war a total of 25 were produced in western countries. In the 1970s there were altogether 20, in the 1980s a total of 48 rising to 103 in the 1990s. In the first two decades of the 21st century western movie studios and TV companies have produced 128. It seems that the further the events themselves recede into the past the greater the efforts that are made to ensure that we retain them at the forefront of our consciousness.
Equally remarkable is the veritable explosion of Holocaust-related memorials, museums, 'educational' projects, seminars, symposiums, exhibitions and commemorations. In Britain alone, for example, a National Holocaust Remembrance Day was inaugurated for the first time in 1999, more than fifty years after the war itself. During the Blairite period the National Curriculum was modified to call for British schoolchildren to spend more time studying the H than all the other conflicts of the 20C combined. This has since been toned down but the H is still the only compulsory topic in the National Curriculum. Around the same time a project was funded to send children from every secondary school in the country on a visit to Auschwitz, a scheme that is still ongoing.
Britain of course is not unique in this regard. Every other western country now has officially-sponsored holocaust commemorations of one sort or another, if not actual physical monuments (although most have those too). Curiously though, the three most prominent countries which do not celebrate Holocaust Memorial Day are those in which the majority of victims are now thought to have met their fate: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Also, although perhaps unsurprisingly, there is almost no official or even public recognition that the holocaust even took place in any non-European country. Holocaust commemoration is an exclusively western affair.
We are entitled to ask ourselves why this dramatic turn of events has come about. How did it happen, what is it for, who or what is behind it and - perhaps the key question - cui bono? I think the central question here is whether the present interest in the H has occurred organically, or whether is is occurring as the result of external agency. My own view tends towards the latter.
