Holocaustomania

Abstract

The years between the two great Holocaust-related events—NBC’s Holocaust and Schindler’s List—were a time of steady growth for Holocaust education. Many states followed the state of New Jersey’s lead in forming Holocaust commissions. The popular media covered Holocaust-related events with greater interest—although, for better or for worse, journalists tended to focus specifically on the seemingly bottomless pit of controversies surrounding the event. At the level of higher education, intellectual interest in the Holocaust became more specialized during these years. The first academic chair in Holocaust history was established at Yeshiva University in 1976. Another chair was established at University of California at Los Angles (UCLA) in 1979. Numerous more were established in the 1980s and 1990s. This was in addition to the numerous of departments of Judaic or Hebrew studies around the country, which often focused more on their interests on the event. “Yes, absolutely the chairs have made the Holocaust a special domain,” Saul Friedlander, chair of Holocaust studies at UCLA, explained, “but there is no choice because otherwise it is not taught in any significant way.”¹ These Holocaust experts provided journalists with juicy, controversial quotations to fill their pages. As we shall see, in general, at any given time there were those who felt the event was being neglected in American schools and needed more attention.