ABSTRACT
In 1985 Claude Lanzmann released his epic lm Shoah, 11 years in the making, to great critical acclaim. Gene Siskel ranked the nine-hour documentary as his number one lm of 1985 and Roger Ebert actually excluded it from his list, claiming that it would be inappropriate to rank other movies against it (“Siskel and Ebert Top 10 Lists”). Building on the popularity of NBC’s Holocaust mini-series (1978), the 1980s saw an increasing number of lms devoted to Holocaust themes, a trend which has continued into the twenty-rst century. Like the young adult literature in this book, Holocaust lms garner awards at a high rate. From the 1959 adaptation of Anne Frank to 2015’s Son of Saul, 21 of the 24 Oscar-nominated lms have won at least one award, and 15 of those lms were released after 1980 (Hoberman). As with lms, Holocaust representation in popular music grows after the 1980s. “Red Sector A” is one of the most well-known popular songs about the Holocaust, from Canadian band Rush’s 1984 album Grace Under Pressure. There are earlier songs, such as Woodie Guthrie’s 1948 “Ilsa Koch” and Captain Beefheart’s 1969 “Dachau Blues,” but Rush released their song at a time when the Holocaust was becoming an ever-increasing part of the popular culture landscape. The song is based on lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee’s experiences as he grew up listening to stories of his parents’ time in the camps, his mother in Bergen-Belsen and his father in Dachau.
