The Holocaust and Hollywood Studios

What did Hollywood know and do about growing Nazi anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as America and the rest of the world waited to respond?

This book traces the complex relationship entangling American movie studios with Nazi anti-Semitism and the Holocaust throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Many film and general histories of the period have concluded that Hollywood could or should have done more to call attention to the growing threat. Yet the very same market forces of the 1920s that brought about rapid expansion of the film industry overseas later embroiled Hollywood in a complex anti-Semitic disinformation campaign at home and abroad that targeted the industry and even threatened its very existence.

Faced with attacks and accusations of warmongering at home, Hollywood’s responses occurred within the ever-evolving and precarious context of the time. This important volume situates and explains Hollywood’s encounter with Nazi anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, not just through isolated films or a few individuals, but in terms of how the path to genocide touched almost every aspect of film business operations along the way. A wealth of new archival research and scholarship across multiple perspectives are examined to bring a fresh and nuanced understanding.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in Film Studies, Jewish Studies, Holocaust Studies, Mass Media, American History, and American Studies. It also has much appeal for the general reader interested in Hollywood history, World War II, the Holocaust, the history of American Jewry, and the Roosevelt presidency.