Selling the Holocaust

What does the Holocaust mean 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. What he finds is disturbing. Cole show us an "Auschwitz-land" where tourists have become the "ultimate ruberneckers" passing by and gazing at someone else's tragedy. He shows us a US Holocaust Museum that provides visitors with a "virtual Holocaust" experience. He shows us that, from movies to museums, the "feel good" Holocaust is being made in America. And, above all, he shows us that as the century closes the frightening reality of the Holocaust is being forgotten.