The Holocaust In American Life Novikck Summary

Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Before reading Novick’s book, I had the preconception that America was concerned about Jews during World War II, but Novick contradicts my previous idea. The reason behind this is revealed in the first section of his novel. There was very little news from reporters and there was not much for reporters to report on. News that did travel was mostly made up stories which made people want to disbelieve it even more (23). One reason for little news was that it seemed uninteresting. Due to this, Americans were unaware of the scale of the Holocaust. By the end, most people guessed a million had been killed (24). When the full story was revealed in the

The fourth chapter begins with how Americans responded to the Holocaust after it spread around media (63-64). Many people were horrified, but many people failed to mention Jews (64). All of the victims of the Holocaust fell under a common term known as “displaced person” (67). Recently, the term “Holocaust survivor” has been used and viewed as an honorific term (68). However, many American Jews had negative views of the survivors because they felt that they were the lowest Jewish elements. This changed over time and many came to believe that the Holocaust and the birth of Israel were part of God’s plan (69). Many people also believed the Jews deserved a state because they had fought for ten years and it would pay respect to those who had died. The government also focused on British guilt. The government said that there were only survivors because the United States had gotten to Germany first and more may have been saved if it was not for the British. Finally, there was sympathy for the survivors, so it seemed urgent to place the Jews somewhere (73). The chapter also mentioned how guilty the American Jews felt after the war, also known as “survivor guilt” (75). Within chapter five, there is talk about the association of Jews and Communism (92-100). Finally, chapter six mentions that the Holocaust may have been “a wake-up call from God occasioned by Jewish sin” (108). Later, survivors were important in remembering the Holocaust (109). The Holocaust became the center of American culture