The fact that Andy has grown from a young boy to a teenager about to leave home has not been lost on his toys. The Hereafter is known as Olam Haba (the "world to come"), Gan Eden (the Heavenly "Garden of Eden", or Paradise) and Gehinom ("Purgatory").Andy Davis (voice: John Morris) is 17 years old, and is heading off to college in a few days. Jewish tradition affirms that the human soul is immortal and thus survives the physical death of the body. According to Wikipedia:Īlthough Judaism concentrates on the importance of the Earthly world (Olam Ha'zeh - "this world"), all of classical Judaism posits an afterlife. Some people have suggested that the toys actually die in the incinerator at the dump, and that the ending of the film is actually their After Life. I had considered the alls-well ending to symbolize the formation of the Israeli state, which is why I called it a "Zionist text" and included a hotlink to Wikipedia's "The Jewish National Home" tag on their "British Mandate of Palestine." I suppose you could consider "The Claw" to be the Allied Forces and the Toys' new home as Israel.īut in a Holocaust interpretation, why take a more literal approach to the events? Approximately six million Jewish men and women died during the Holocaust and not so many got a happy ending. I contacted Jordan about his article and he had something interesting to add: It is a place where many of their kind already live and have an established foothold, and it would appear that security, finally, is at hand if they are vigilant. Our heroes get saved at the last minute, of course, and they find themselves a new homeland. Hoffman reads their escape as literal, with the Pizza Planet aliens representing a group of concentration camp prisoners who escape at the last possible second: Of course, the toys are saved at the last minute by aliens from another planet (Pizza Planet, that is). Newcomers are bashed and abused in the "Caterpillar Room" by non-age appropriate children until they resemble Muselmann and are eventually thrown into the trash chute.Īnd of course, the trash chute leads they Toys to a giant incinerator at the dump where all the unwanted objects are killed, burnt and put in a landfill. Once there, they meet the toy version of Sonderkommando, toys who live the stay fed and well-sheltered (like Ken in his dream house) while leading other toys to a certain death. Wikipedia defines the word concentration as coming from "the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place." Sounds like Sunnyside right? The toys at Sunnyside are completely composed of undesirables, all sent away as they are no longer needed/wanted in "society". In this interpretation, Sunnyside is Dachau concentration camp. Of course, they end up trapped in a box in the trunk of a car, heading to be donated to Sunnyside Daycare. Buzz Lightyear stands forward and suggests sanctuary IN AN ATTIC. Yes, we've lost friends (Bo Peep), but surely that can't happen to us. Change a few words and it is the same exact scene at the train station from Roman Polanski's award winning Holocaust drama The Pianist. Woody holds a meeting, where the assembled toy family discusses possible outcomes for their new position in the world. These toys are left behind, just as host nations left behind the Jews as the Third Reich conquered Europe. Jordan Hoffman of UGO came up with an interpretation of Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3 which points out the parallels to the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's systematic state-sponsored extermination of approximately six million Jews during World War II.Īndy is seventeen and about to leave for college. So if you've seen the movie, and are not afraid to consider a wacky film theory about how Toy Story 3 is really a story about the Holocaust, continue after the jump. That said, you should not read any further unless you have seen Toy Story 3, as it won't make much sense if you don't understand the story/plot references, and it will probably spoil important plot points from the film.
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