The Holocaust Is Barely Mentioned In New World War II ‘Call Of Duty’ Game

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By Ari Feldman November 9, 2017

The latest Call of Duty video game, centered on World War II, barely mentions the Holocaust or Jews, Mashable reported. The only reference to the Holocaust is during a 38-second cutscene in which the narrator talks about seeing things that “stayed with me forever.”

“I thought I knew what cruelty was; I didn’t know anything,” the narrator says, as pictures of people in concentration camps are shown in the background.

After the cutscene, the story centers on the protagonists searching a POW camp — the only internment or concentration camp shown during the game.

“It’s such a reductive representation of a moment when an estimated 17 million lives were snuffed out — including roughly two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population, plus members of other groups deemed as ‘inferior’ by the Nazis,” Adam Rosenberg, a Mashable critic, wrote.

The makers of the game had originally reported in May that they would not “shy away from history” in depicting the Holocaust.

“Call of Duty: WWII had the easiest job in the world — portray Nazis as the ghoulish, racist villains they were — and it came up mind-bogglingly short,” Rosenberg said.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

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