Selling the Holocaust

"Selling the Holocaust is a provocative account of the meaning of the Holocaust at the end of the twentieth century. Tim Cole examines three of the Holocaust's most emblematic figures, Anne Frank, Adolf Eichmann, and Oskar Schindler, and three of the Holocaust's most visited sites, Auschwitz, Yad Vashem, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, to show us how the Holocaust has been mythologized in the popular imagination. With a historian's eye for detail and a profound sense of moral outrage, Cole paints a disturbing picture of how the Holocaust is being bought, packaged, and sold today. He shows us an "Auschwitz-land" where tourists have become the "ultimate rubberneckers" passing by and gazing at someone else's tragedy. He shows us a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that provides visitors with a "virtual Holocaust" experience. He shows us a Hollywood Holocaust, where movies gloss over the tragic proportions of this event in order to provide "feel-good" endings. And, above all, he shows us that as the century closes the frightening reality of the Holocaust is being forgotten. Selling the Holocaust is an insightful and important look at this century's most iconic event." -- From book jacket.