Performing cultural memory: The holocaust in dutch multi-platform television documentary

This chapter discusses the relationship between television, history and memory by investigating how ‘multi-platform’ TV documentary programming helps to perform cultural memory of the Holocaust. It analyses how the Dutch TV documentaries 13 in de Oorlog and De Oorlog can function as a practice of memory in their representation of this difficult and complex subject matter. The chapter explores the new dynamic ways in which cultural memory is performed across the current media landscape. Cultural memory is ‘memory that is shared outside the avenues of formal historical discourse yet is entangled with cultural products and imbued with cultural meaning’ - memory that is ‘entangled’ with history rather than always opposed to history. The television makers considered the extent to which memory narratives have been affected by the passing of time and intermediate events, and also how to convey these narratives to audiences.