How representations of the Holocaust may be disappearing
If you’re curious about how and why we represent and remember the Holocaust through certain icons, consider attending “Icons of the Holocaust” by Professor Oren Stier, a Jewish studies scholar at Florida International University in Miami.
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education virtual program will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, via Zoom, to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Visit mchekc.org/ihrd/ to register. Stier will be utilizing his book, “Holocaust Icons: Symbolizing the Shoah in History and Memory” to explain how these icons are at risk from a variety of threats such as commodification.
Stier said icons can become commodities or “products” you can buy and sell in a most blatant way. Sometimes things that represent the Holocaust are used and abused in order to make points, to convince people of deeds that many times have nothing to do with the events surrounding genocide.
For example, 1930s and ’40s railway cars are a coveted artifact for many museums and memorials, not just Holocaust museums. What if someone used the number six million to refer to people who died in a different set of circumstances. This would be selling the point of something else being like the Holocaust, explained Stier.
Or say someone is described as the Anne Frank of a different place, a different time and a different set of circumstances. “It takes away from the specificity of the circumstances in question and it also takes away from the specificity of Anne Frank.”
Stier said many people who read the diary in middle school may know that Anne Frank was murdered in the Holocaust but it’s not front and center knowledge, or they may not even know. When the book is read and taught, particularly for middle schoolers, how do you know if students are introduced to the fact that she died a horrible, gruesome death?
“That works a couple of ways — in one way it makes her very relatable because it’s not horrific, it’s not scary,” said Stier. “But in another way, there’s an element of, not exactly denial, God forbid, but it’s not telling the whole story. It’s telling a more convenient story, a more relatable story, a more accessible story. And for some people, that accessibility is very important.”
The icons Stier covers in his book (the six million; railway cars; the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work makes one free”; and Anne Frank) are ways that people can connect to the Holocaust, but because they’re malleable they can be used in different ways. He said they almost become exchange items; anyone can use them in any way possible. “And there are dangers in that.”
“One of the things I want people to understand is that these icons are powerful; one way you know they’re so powerful is because they’re adopted by others, they’re appropriated, they’ve come to be used for other things,” he said. “You know something’s important if everybody wants a piece of it.”
Stier does not believe the Holocaust will ever be forgotten, despite various icons being dispossessed of their meanings. The Holocaust was an epoch event, he said. However, its history and memory will continue to evolve. The past is constantly changing — not because it didn’t happen, but because we always view it differently in different eras.
People will remember the Holocaust differently, think about it differently. He said at some point in the next decade there will no longer be people alive who experienced the events of the Holocaust.
“That’s going to be a huge shift, but we’re already shifting, we’re already changing in terms of how we think about and remember the Holocaust,” he said. “I just don’t know the shape that that’s going to take in another 100 years or in another 500 years.”
Stier said the way the Holocaust is assimilated into culture and the way people think about it, and also the way people will deny it, will conceal the facts, intentions or feelings under some pretense.
“The worst kind of denial is not those who say it just never happened. The worst kind are those who say it wasn’t as bad as everybody says. Unfortunately, that will continue to occur as well and that will also grow because, look around; these days people will believe anything,” he said.
“I’m not worried that the memory of the Holocaust will disappear, but unfortunately along with that the denial of the memory of the Holocaust will also continue.”
