Sixty years after WWII, how do we keep the memory of the Holocaust alive? This is the central question in THE HOLOCAUST EXPERIENCE, which moves between two extremes: the sober, eloquent ruins of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the noisy, hyper-realistic holocaust museums of America.

In the State Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Poland, a bitter battle is being fought with time. One by one, the concrete poles that surrounded the prisoners are being restored: five thousand poles with barbed wire. "Everything here should stay the way it was," one of the workmen says dutifully. That turns out to be an impossible goal.

Some places in the camp, where great horrors took place, are already overgrown with weeds. At the same time, there is another dilemma: where does the camp end and the ordinary world start? What should be protected and preserved, and what shouldn't?

While Auschwitz wrestles with its mortality, the virtual Auschwitz exhibits in American holocaust museums are all the rage. Visitors to the Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles who take a Holocaust day out can, at the end of the day, enter a mock gas chamber.

The Americans also use authentic material. Cases, striped prisoner's suits and even a complete shed have been transported from Europe to America, where they are meticulously conserved and put on show. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. has even imported the cut hair of people who were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but the exhibition faced moral objections.

This documentary investigates how the memory of the Holocaust is kept alive on both sides of the Atlantic. Both human effort and human impotence are tangible, as this history is preserved for future generations.

"Powerful. Recommended for all libraries."—Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter

"What is disturbing and striking in this rendition is the way in which routine elements from contemporary culture are interwoven with the philosophical questions of remembering and commemorating the Holocaust. Whether it’s the segments that follow tour buses loading and unloading tourists at the gates of Auschwitz or the Washington D.C. and Los Angeles museums – with guides that seem cavalier about their charge to welcome confused and apprehensive visitors, the film reminds us how difficult it is to insert the horrors of the past within the comforts of a democratic and capitalist society, such as the United States.

[THE HOLOCAUST EXPERIENCE] means to offend some of our presuppositions and to challenge us to rethink what is and what isn't an appropriate way of thinking about or remembering the Holocaust."—Professor of Philosophy Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, for Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal