Salinger and the Holocaust

Before I left for my awesome trip to Israel, I was able to watch the recently released documentary about J.D. Salinger. Salinger is a very famous World War II veteran who wrote the famous novel "the Catcher in the Rye." The book is famous for it's main character Holden, a teenage boy who to many seems like a big baby. Holden may complain a lot, but to me Holden is a more relatable as character from a book than some people are in real life. Salinger's masterpiece centers around Holden running away from school and walking around New York City for three days. The most interesting part about "the Catcher in the Rye" is that J.D. Salinger saw a horrific amount of WWII; he was part of one of the first liberations of a concentration camp; he stormed Normandy on D-Day. All of this inspired him to write about Holden. He didn't write about his experiences in war like the other authors of the time, instead he talked about the loss of innocence through the eyes of a teenager.

There is no denying the Holocaust was a major loss of innocence. Millions were slaughtered by the hands of the Nazis (people were also killed under the command of Stalin which many people seem to forget). It may not come as a surprise to some, but there is a pretty clear theory that says how J.D. Salinger essentially is Holden Caulfield. Holden suffers from the loss of innocence and how he witnesses it happen with things like the young prostitute, Sunny, and the boy who commits suicide, James Castle. A good amount of the people who witnessed the Holocaust first hand were very young at that age -- including Salinger -- and some were even younger than Holden. It would only make sense to say that Holden doesn't only embody Salinger's voice, but the voice of the younger portion of society. Of course this true because Holden is such a relatable character for so many young adults.

I highly recommend the movie "American Masters: Salinger" and the book "the Catcher and the Rye" to anyone who has not read the book or seen the movie. Salinger creates a character who may not experience as cruel things as the Holocaust, but Holden creates the same sense of the loss of innocence felt after WWII and the Holocaust.