Of course, the guy I was with was bawling his eyes out. He's said he was totally aware he was being manipulated, but it was still sucking him in.

Well, that was me. You can spot the manipulation a mile off, but it didn't minimize the effect of what I was seeing, for me. And imagining the real people, the camps, the brutality.

He's said he was totally aware he was being manipulated, but it was still sucking him in.

This was me. Watching Saving Private Ryan, otoh, I didn't buy into the manipulation and just felt like I was being jerked around. (Band of Brothers got me, though.)

Looking back on my elementary/middle/high school education on the Holocaust, I'd have to say we had practically none. While in 7th grade, though, I had seen a TV movie on the capture of Eichmann and started reading up on the subject on my own. Back in the late '70s, there were very few books for children on the Holocaust (other than Anne Frank), so I just read adult books, complete with graphic photographs and descriptions.

Yeah, Saving Private Ryan just annoyed me. Band of Brothers didn't, although I haven't seen the whole thing.

I'm with Kathy on the education -- as far as I can remember, the only discussion of the Holocaust in school for me revolved around The Diary of Anne Frank.

I liked Saving Private Ryan up until the very end. "Am I a good man?"

"Oh, shut up and get in the car."

Of course, the guy I was with was bawling his eyes out. He's said he was totally aware he was being manipulated, but it was still sucking him in.

Well, that was me.

Me, three.

I can't remember much discussion of the Holocaust in regular school until high school. It was discussed a lot in Hebrew school, though. (Particularly during fifth grade, when we had a teacher who really didn't know how to teach, and I'm pretty sure he didn't know much more Hebrew than we did, and he spent a lot of time telling up about what happened to him during the Holocaust.)

I remember a teacher reading The Diary of Anne Frank to us in grade five, but I was aware of it way before then.

Schindler's List made me angry. The more emotionally manipulative and anvilicious it got, the angrier I got. I couldn't believe that Steven Speilberg was turning the Holocaust into entertainment. I am not a Steven Speilberg fan, and I probably should never have gone in the first place.

Sue and I are sympatico on all this. But I should mention that I was completely aghast at Judgment At Nuremberg, which I've since decided was just as manipulative. I've never watched Shoah, but I have a hard time trying to imagine how a movie, especially a Hollywood movie, could capture the horror of the Holocaust without trying to inject a dose of entertainment into it. In fact, besides Schindler's List, the major studio movies I can think of are Life Is Beautiful and Jakob The Liar, both of which are practically crimes against humanity. I can think of a handful of decent movies about the Holocaust, but they are more about the effect of the Holocaust on regular citizens: Au Revoir Les Enfants, The Sorrow And The Pity, Night And Fog.

Holocaust literature tends to be shocking and bleak, too, although I think literature has an easier time capturing horror than narrative film. You have a narrator, so you don't need another point of identification as a way into the story.

Does THE PIANIST count?

The Pianist made me bark with laughter at the coat scene.