"Literature of the Holocaust" courses, whether taught in high schools or at universities, necessarily cover texts from a broad range of international contexts. Instructors are required, regardless of their own disciplinary training, to become comparatists and discuss all works with equal expertise. This books offers analyses of the ways in which representations of the Holocaust-whether in text, film, or material culture-are shaped by national context, providing a valuable pedagogical source in terms of both content and methodology. As memory yields to post-memory, nation of origin plays a larger role in each re-telling, and the chapters in this book explore this notion covering well-known texts like Night (Hungary), Survival in Auschwitz (Italy), MAUS (United States), This Way to the Gas (Poland), and The Reader (Germany), while also introducing lesser-known representations from countries like Argentina or Australia.
Hilene S. Flanzbaum is the Allegra Stewart Chair of Modern Literature at Butler University.
Introduction Chapter 1: Selling the Holocaust in 21st Century France Hilene Flanzbaum, Butler University Chapter 2: Life is Beautiful, or Not: The Myth of the Good Italian Shira Klein, Chapman University Chapter 3: Not my Holocaust: MAUS and Memory in the Polish Classroom Holli Levitsky, Loyola Marymount University Chapter 4: Germans, Migration and Holocaust Memory in Contemporary Literature Agnes Mueller, University of South Carolina Chapter 5: The Burden of the Third Generation in Germany: Nora Krug's Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home Victoria Aarons, Trinity University Chapter 6: An Impossible Homecoming: Ruth Kluger's Austria Sarah Painitz, Butler University Chapter 7: Fractures and Refraction in Argentina: Prosthetic Memory and Edgardo Cozarinsky's Lejos de donde Amy Kaminsky, University of Minnesota Chapter 8: Anglicization and the Holocaust in Judith Kerr and Eva Tucker's Fiction Joshua Lander, University of Glasgow Chapter 9: Collective Disengagement: Canada's National Holocaust Memorial Lizy Mostowski, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chapter 10: Forgetting and Remembering: The Holocaust in Australian Fiction Ira Nadel, University of British Columbia Chapter 11: We Are the New Children: Shoah and Israeli Childhood in Nava Semel's And the RatLaughed Ranen Omer-Sherman, University of Louisville Chapter 12: Representing the Holocaust and Jewishness in Contemporary Television: The Man inthe High Castle,Hunters and Juda Marat Grinberg, Reed College Index About the Contributors
Flanzbaum acknowledges in her introduction that she was "compelled to examine the relative use of Holocaust literature across national boundaries" when she realized that Bernhard Schlink's novel The Reader (1995) would be read differently in different countries. This collection includes analyses of fiction, memoir, television, film, and the Canadian National Holocaust Monument. The works studied come from Australia, Austria, the US, Italy, Germany, Israel, France, the UK, and Argentina. All the essays are well researched and competent, but deserving special mention are Victoria Aarons's essay on Nora Krug's Belonging, Sarah Painitz's essay on Ruth Kluger's less-known book unterwegs verloren, Amy Kaminsky's study of Edgardo Cozarinsky's Lejos de donde, and Marat Grinberg's analysis of three Holocaust television series. The contributors bring differing theories to their essays[.] Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice Reviews *
