Conflict & Communication Online (Apr 2013)
Engaging with German history: Reactions of the third post-war generation to cinematic representations of the Holocaust
Abstract
Because the number of surviving contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust is rapidly declining, media reports are increasingly important for transmitting history to the “Third Generation.” The focus of this quasi-experimental study is on the recipient-side effects for school pupils of viewing TV documentaries that use different strategies to represent the Holocaust. For this purpose, 12 school classes (N = 184) were asked by questionnaire about their national identification and previous engagement with the Holocaust. Three weeks later, the study participants were shown one of six different film excerpts, whereby each film excerpt was viewed by respectively one group from Baden-Württemberg and one from Thüringen. The different reactions to the excerpts were sampled using standardized items and open-response essay questions. The results point to the conditions under which TV documentaries elicit contra-indexed effects and how enlightenment on past injustice can be achieved using cinematic material, without eliciting defensive reactions, and thereby make possible a constructive engagement with history.
