The trope of the ‘Nazi neighbor’ has existed in the American media landscape since the end of the Second World War, appearing in films, books, television, and print journalism for more than eighty years. Real immigrant Holocaust perpetrators’ stories diverged significantly from their popular media representation, allowing historical inaccuracies to flourish. In many cases, this ‘imagined’ Nazi conforms much more closely to popular stereotypes of Nazism than to historical reality, reflecting American preoccupations with heroic self-representation in the post-Holocaust world.
This talk will examine the differences and similarities that exist between the imagined immigrant Holocaust perpetrator in America and his real-life counterparts, and how the perpetuation of a stereotype has prevented accurate historical understanding.
Claire E. Aubin is a YPSA postdoctoral associate. She has a PhD and LLM from the University of Edinburgh, and her doctoral dissertation is the basis for a forthcoming monograph with Cambridge University Press, titledThe Homeland: Nazi Perpetrators as Immigrants to America. Aubin is the host of the popular general history podcast“This Guy Sucked.”
Made possible by a generous gift from the Benjamin Zucker Family Environmental Fund.
