Trudy Gold
The Holocaust on Film, Part 2
Summary
Trudy Gold explores the question, how is the inconceivable communicated? In 1978, the heavily criticised American mini-series “Holocaust” aired for nine and a half hours on prime time television. It was watched by 120 million people worldwide, including 15 million in West Germany. “Holocaust” paved the way for a string of popular works that culminated with the Oscar-winning film “Schindlers List.” These two sessions will examine the purpose and impact of these films and compare them with Claude Lanzmann’s documentary “Shoah,” a pitiless exploration of the abandonment and murder of the Jewish people.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
That is exactly my horrific story, because, don’t forget, “Schindler’s List” went to every school in Britain, and in America, I believe. Holocaust studies is on the core curriculum. But something has gone terribly wrong. I agree with you. I was part of it for 40 years. Mea culpa. We got it wrong. It did not make enough of an indent into antisemitism. I think one of the problems is it’s ripped out of Jewish history. That’s my feeling. And when you rip something out of Jewish history, you’ve got a terrible problem. And also ‘45 to '48 is totally neglected, so I think how it can be rectified, I don’t know. I’d love to see the British government having the courage to put Jewish history on the core curriculum. You could do it as part of a process known as Living with Difference. Look at the various immigrant groups that make up British society. And I think the Jews could be one of them. I actually have a syllabus under my bed, but who knows?
Galicia, please do not use logic in hatred, because it doesn’t ever work. Yes, there’s a wonderful poem by Israel Zangwill, where Jesus and Moses meet in heaven, and they both look at each other with dark, dark eyes, sad eyes. Of course, even by just reading the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptics, Jesus came for the Jews. He was a… Look, a Jew would say that he was a Wonder Rabbi. A benign Jew would say he was a Wonder Rabbi who came to … Others say he was a Pharisee. Hyam Maccoby believed he was a zealot. We have no real evidence. The problem with the story of Christianity is where is the evidence? But you could say that about Judaism. It’s about belief.