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9781611495980

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Focusing on Austria, East Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and the US, these ten essays analyze films, novels, stories, poetry, and museums to reveal the country's dominant Holocaust narrative-a narrative determined by the role the population of the country played in the Holocaust and the prevailing self-image of the nation. The contributors define a country's dominant Holocaust discourse (and competing counter narrative) by studying how cultural works reflect trauma, guilt, and collaboration. Austria and France play down direct collaboration in the Holocaust; Poland and Lithuania emphasize victimhood rather than direct involvement in mass murder; the former East Germany equated persecution of communists with that of others; the US highlights itself as land of redemptive new beginnings; Israel accentuates homecoming. The essays also analyze works that emphasize the counter narrative or debunk works reflecting the mainstream discourse. Films analyzed include Night and Fog, The Sorrow and the Pity, Shoah, Schindler's List, and Life Is Beautiful, to name just a few. Also examined are Holocaust reports in the work of Zofia Nalkowska, Czeslaw Milosz, Sherri Szeman, Aharon Appelfeld, Yoram Kaniuk, Yehudit Hendel, and Shesh Knafayim, and three historical museums in Lithuania. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers. * CHOICE *

Focusing on Austria, East Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and the US, these ten essays analyze films, novels, stories, poetry, and museums to reveal the country's dominant Holocaust narrative-a narrative determined by the role the population of the country played in the Holocaust and the prevailing self-image of the nation. The contributors define a country's dominant Holocaust discourse (and competing counter narrative) by studying how cultural works reflect trauma, guilt, and collaboration. Austria and France play down direct collaboration in the Holocaust; Poland and Lithuania emphasize victimhood rather than direct involvement in mass murder; the former East Germany equated persecution of communists with that of others; the US highlights itself as land of redemptive new beginnings; Israel accentuates homecoming. The essays also analyze works that emphasize the counter narrative or debunk works reflecting the mainstream discourse. Films analyzed include Night and Fog, The Sorrow and the Pity, Shoah, Schindler's List, and Life Is Beautiful, to name just a few. Also examined are Holocaust reports in the work of Zofia Nalkowska, Czeslaw Milosz, Sherri Szeman, Aharon Appelfeld, Yoram Kaniuk, Yehudit Hendel, and Shesh Knafayim, and three historical museums in Lithuania. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers. CHOICE

Focusing on Austria, East Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and the US, these ten essays analyze films, novels, stories, poetry, and museums to reveal the country's dominant Holocaust narrative-a narrative determined by the role the population of the country played in the Holocaust and the prevailing self-image of the nation. The contributors define a country's dominant Holocaust discourse (and competing counter narrative) by studying how cultural works reflect trauma, guilt, and collaboration. Austria and France play down direct collaboration in the Holocaust; Poland and Lithuania emphasize victimhood rather than direct involvement in mass murder; the former East Germany equated persecution of communists with that of others; the US highlights itself as land of redemptive new beginnings; Israel accentuates homecoming. The essays also analyze works that emphasize the counter narrative or debunk works reflecting the mainstream discourse. Films analyzed include Night and Fog, The Sorrow and the Pity, Shoah, Schindler's List, and Life Is Beautiful, to name just a few. Also examined are Holocaust reports in the work of Zofia Nalkowska, Czeslaw Milosz, Sherri Szeman, Aharon Appelfeld, Yoram Kaniuk, Yehudit Hendel, and Shesh Knafayim, and three historical museums in Lithuania. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers. * CHOICE * Focusing on Austria, East Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and the US, these ten essays analyze films, novels, stories, poetry, and museums to reveal the country's dominant Holocaust narrative-a narrative determined by the role the population of the country played in the Holocaust and the prevailing self-image of the nation. The contributors define a country's dominant Holocaust discourse (and competing counter narrative) by studying how cultural works reflect trauma, guilt, and collaboration. Austria and France play down direct collaboration in the Holocaust; Poland and Lithuania emphasize victimhood rather than direct involvement in mass murder; the former East Germany equated persecution of communists with that of others; the US highlights itself as land of redemptive new beginnings; Israel accentuates homecoming. The essays also analyze works that emphasize the counter narrative or debunk works reflecting the mainstream discourse. Films analyzed include Night and Fog, The Sorrow and the Pity, Shoah, Schindler's List, and Life Is Beautiful, to name just a few. Also examined are Holocaust reports in the work of Zofia Nalkowska, Czeslaw Milosz, Sherri Szeman, Aharon Appelfeld, Yoram Kaniuk, Yehudit Hendel, and Shesh Knafayim, and three historical museums in Lithuania. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers. CHOICE

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Jennifer Taylor is associate professor of German Studies in the department of modern languages and literatures at the College of William and Mary.

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