ABSTRACT
While teaching about the Holocaust usually entails tracing its stages and exploring the broader questions it raises through lectures, the examination of primary and secondary sources, and class discussion, it is important not to ignore the pedagogical potential of motion pictures when they are appropriately contextualized and rigorously analyzed. Newsreels, propaganda movies, and feature films produced and shown during Hitler’s rule provide a wealth of evidence in regard to how the Nazis and the Allies perceived the Nazis’ words, threats, and actions against the Jews. Concomitantly, postwar documentaries and cinematic dramatizations reveal how interpretations and representations of the Shoah vary depending on when and where and by whom they were produced. They enable students to gain a semblance of what those who lived through the Holocaust felt and thought when Germany and its collaborators marginalized and murdered the Jews in their midst. Comparing and contrasting films with the sources on which they are based can be a valuable learning exercise. Used with sensitivity and pedagogical sagacity, the cinematic record and representations of the Holocaust can illuminate the subject rather than overshadow it.
