ABSTRACT
Despite the ideological critique of Popular Culture, films on the Holocaust have made a critical intervention in the way the genocide is remembered by the present generation. While most of these films have dealt with adults, the two films discussed in this chapter have vastly complicated the normative representation of the Holocaust by introducing the fragmented and variable narratives of children. The child protagonists of Jojo Rabbit (2019) and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) are prone to daydreaming and creating a make-believe world where they struggle to negotiate with their everyday lived experiences including the fear of persecution and death. The children cope with the deeply unsettling experience of the Holocaust by framing an alternative order of reality that is playful and uncomplicated. This chapter seeks to explore the child’s-eye view and the use of fantasy in reconstructing the repressed and unrepresentable dimensions of the Holocaust experience in these films. It also attempts to debate the question of incompatibility between the Holocaust and Popular Culture by arguing that the films express a critical understanding of historical trauma and reality although they are conventionally and predictably regarded as constructions of the popular entertainment industry.
