Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory through the Camera's Eye / Edition 2

by Barbie Zelizer

Overview

Barbie Zelizer reveals the unique significance of the photographs taken at the liberation of the concentration camps in Germany after World War II. She shows how the photographs have become the basis of our memory of the Holocaust and how they have affected our presentations and perceptions of contemporary history's subsequent atrocities. Impressive in its range and depth and illustrated with more than 60 photographs, Remembering to Forget is a history of contemporary photojournalism, a compelling chronicle of these unforgettable photographs, and a fascinating study of how collective memory is forged and changed.

"[A] fascinating study. . . . Here we have a completely fresh look at the emergence of photography as a major component of journalistic reporting in the course of the liberation of the camps by the Western Allies. . . . Well written and argued, superbly produced with more photographs of atrocity than most people would want to see in a lifetime, this is clearly an important book."--Omer Bartov, Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226979731
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/01/2000
Edition description:	1
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.38(h) x 1.50(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
I: Collective Memories, Images, and the Atrocity of War
II: Before the Liberation: Journalism, Photography, and the Early Coverage of Atrocity
III: Covering Atrocity in Word
IV: Covering Atrocity in Image
V: Forgetting to Remember: Photography as Ground of Early Atrocity Memories
VI: Remembering to Remember: Photography as Figure of Contemporary Atrocity Memories
VII: Remembering to Forget: Contemporary Scrapbooks of Atrocity
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Deborah E. Lipstadt

Most of the Holocaust photographs which are readily familiar to us were those taken during the 'liberation' of the death camps. Barbie Zelizer's compelling book is a long overdue analysis of these images which have become symbolic of the Holocaust itself.

Geoffrey Hartman

Has the dominance of Holocaust imagery become so archetypal that its very telling of the gruesome story makes us less responsive than we should be to the flood of images that record new atrocities in Bosnia and Africa? [Zelizer's] controversial conclusion that televised and journalistic images now wear themselves out of memory and may lessen the viability of public action gives [her] work an urgent contemporary relevance. -- Yale University

Editorial Reviews

Zelizer (Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the Shaping of the Collective Memory, LJ 11/1/92), who writes regularly for the Nation, has produced an interesting study of the relationship between photojournalism, memories, and atrocities such as the Holocaust. Zelizer argues that photographs became the major part of the journalistic record during World War II, when the reality of the camps could not be conveyed entirely in words. That advance for contemporary photojournalism has created a collective memory of the Holocaust. In addition, Zelizer questions the images' role in representing the past historically and in remembering the past collectively. She also links Holocaust photographs to how people present and perceive present-day atrocities, which are measured against the German horrors and vice versa. She traces the waves of memory about the atrocities and how photographs have been used since the 1950s. Much has been written about the press and the Holocaust, but this is unique in its focus on the collective memory. Recommended for media, communications, and Holocaust collections.--Mary F. Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll. Lib., Wheeling

Library Journal

Nation contributor Zelizer (communication, U. of Pennsylvania) analyzes not only how the photographic witnessing of the Holocaust influenced the course of photojournalism, but also how such atrocity photos have contributed to alternate cycles of collective remembering and desensitization about contemporary horrors of war and genocide such as Bosnia and Cambodia. She draws upon the work of French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Includes about 60 haunting b&w photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

[A] fascinating study…Here we have a completely fresh look at the emergence of photography as a major component of journalistic reporting in the course of the liberation of the camps by the Western Allies…[T]his is clearly an important book.
—

Omer Bartov