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The Jewish Chronicle

And the Oscar doesn't go to...Holocaust films?

February 17, 2011 13:28
Daniel Craig in last year’s Defiance, the story of the partisan Bielski Brothers during the Holocaust

ByTom Tugend, Tom Tugend

2 min read

This is the first year for nearly 50 years that not a single Oscar or Golden Globe entry has focused on the horrors of the Shoah.

Equally ignored, with one peripheral exception, are films on World War II and the Nazi regime. Only a year ago, Jewish GIs were wiping out Hitler and his minions in Inglorious Basterds, and the year before we fed on German guilt and anti-Nazi resistance in The Reader, Defiance and Valkyrie.

It may be even more significant that among the 65 foreign-language films vying for Oscar honours, which often reflect the present moods and concerns of their respective countries, none deal with that historic era.

While some current foreign entries touch on themes of war, oppression and resistance, the time frame has shifted from the 1930s and '40s to post-war Communist and other dictatorships and to recent genocides.