SOURCE: Douglas, Lawrence. “Too Vivid a Memory.” Commonweal 126, no. 14 (13 August 1999): 24-5.

In the following review, Douglas praises Novick for providing an interesting analysis of the politics of memory in The Holocaust in American Life, but notes that Novick fails to acknowledge the great intrinsic importance of the Holocaust itself.

What is the value of preserving the memory of the Holocaust's radical evil? The most familiar answer finds expression in the shibboleth, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” Implicit in this view is the idea that memory serves as a tool of liberation: Only by vigilantly minding the past can we hope to create a less hateful future.

Such vigilance has turned the project of preserving memories of the Holocaust into a major industry. Countless books, movies, videos, memorials, and museums are devoted to keeping the Nazis' campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe from...