Imagining Evil: Immigrant Holocaust Perpetrators in American Media

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 historian of Nazism, Holocaust perpetration, and twentieth-century American culture, with a Ph.D. and LL.M. from the University of Edinburgh. Her doctoral dissertation is the basis for a forthcoming monograph with Cambridge University Press, titled The Homeland: Nazi Perpetrators as Immigrants to America, and she is the host of the popular general history podcast This Guy Sucked.

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