Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
The Palgrave Handbook of Britain and the Holocaust
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2020) 135-152
Keywords:
Coward, Charles
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Rescue
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Foreign public opinion, British
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Historiography
Abstract:
Post-war austerity gave birth to a popular hankering. The British public wanted to look back to the recent conflict and believe that the sacrifice had been worthwhile. An avalanche of books and films catered to this impulse. It was perhaps inevitable that the plethora of valiant yarns would find a place for the Holocaust. Charles Coward, a lowly non-commissioned officer from Edmonton in North London cornered the market. His tale of derring-do, The Password is Courage, penned by two journalists and published in 1954, caught the popular imagination and has not let go. This is surprising because post-war representations of British wartime heroism are now generally treated with more rigour. Consequently, the market for hammy reconstructions has given way to a desire for gritty realism. Yet Coward’s story has displayed remarkable resilience to dominant trends. This chapter traces the development of Coward’s narrative and demonstrates that it is strewn with inaccuracies and exaggerations. In seeking to find out why his story still holds sway, it asks whether academia, which has consistently criticised British responses to the Holocaust, has a role to play in the ever-widening gap between this negative assessment and a widespread public desire to believe that Britain had a ‘good war’. While welcoming recent work on memory, remembrance, memorialisation and education, this chapter suggests that the historiography related to Britain and the Holocaust is by no means complete.
DOI:
10.1007/978-3-030-55932-8_7
URL:
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