Always Look on the Bright Side of Genocide

When did the Holocaust become morally ambiguous?

By Michael Atkinson

It's been virtually impossible not to notice the surge in Holocaust movies that have come rampaging at us recently, even in addition to the requisite battery of Oscar-aimed documentaries. We've all been head-thumped by the publicity for Defiance, The Reader and Valkyrie, while moviegoers in [RETURN TO ARTICLE]

  • Reader Comments

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    Mr. Atkinson is a talented writer, but this seems to be more of a temper tantrum than a review. Schindler’s List, Defiance and Valkyrie are all true stories that are Hollywoodized—although Schindler’s List is by far the most successful and artful as a movie.Yet all three are true and honorable stories.

    Von Stauffenberg was a genuine hero who died in a noble cause. My understanding is that it was the Holocaust and other crimes of the Reich that drove him into the ranks of the German military conspirators at least a year or two before his famous attempt on Hitler.

    I found The Reader a good fictional movie experience, but I can certainly understand criticisms of it—although it by no means exonerates the Kate Winslet character for her crimes.

    Defiance concentrates on an amazing band of Jews who rescued themselves. Their story deserved a better movie, one with the superior qualities of Schindler’s List perhaps—a movie that focuses of necessity on the German bon vivant who saved so many Jewish lives.  But I don’t understand Atkinson’s complaint about movies that say more about the relatively few survivors than those who perished. Their stories of survival against great odds also highlights the fact that so many were murdered.

    United States Posted by rseliger on Mar 10, 2009 at 1:14 PM

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    China Posted by Joshuapan on Dec 14, 2010 at 12:00 AM
     Page 1 of 1 pages

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