Jewish Brazilian Post-Holocaust Fiction: The Body as a Source of Polymorphous Memory Discourse in Cíntia Moscovich’s Por que sou gorda, mamãe?

2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Joanna M. Moszczyńska
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Jewish Immigration ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Jewish

Abstract In this article, I propose a reading of the Brazilian novel Por que sou gorda, mamãe? (2006) through the prism of the body as an oblique signifier of polymorphous post-Holocaust memory discourse. I will be employing the idea of the “strange body” in the following, that is, an experience of estrangement that can arise from trauma-induced conflict or fracture and “is capable of testifying to complexes of social operations and realities well beyond not only a given subject, but also a given generation” (Atkinson 2017, 34). In Cíntia Mos­covich’s novel, this strange-bodiness is articulated through the uncanny presence of an obese Jewish female body; a body which bears witness to a subversive force of trauma and denounces the fascist ideology within the continuities of subtly intertwined European and Brazilian histories. European Jewish life in shtetlech, pogroms, exile, and the Holocaust merge not only with the Brazilian context of Jewish immigration, but also with the history of Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

scholarly journals On Becoming a Non-Jewish Holocaust Writer: Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Family Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Origins

To appraise Martel’s non-Jewish perspective of Holocaust thematic, it is important to assess it in the context of the Jewish relations with the Holocaust. Even though the Jewish claim to the uniqueness of the Holocaust has been disputed since the end of the war especially in Eastern Europe, the Jewish response determined to a large extent the reception of the disaster on the global scene. On a family level, the children of survivors have identified themselves as the legitimate heirs of the unknowable experience of their parents. On a collective level, the decree of Jewish annihilation constructed a Jewish identity that imposed an obligation to keep the Holocaust memory in the consciousness of the world. Martel proposes to supersede the history of the Holocaust with a story which would downplay the Jewish filiation with the Holocaust, elicit an affiliative response to the event of the non-Jewish writer and consequently integrate it into the memory of humanity at large. However, the Holocaust theme of Beatrice and Virgil refuses to assimilate within the general memory of humanity; rather, the consciousness of the event, which pervades the post-Holocaust world, insists on its constant presence. The omnipresence of the Holocaust blurs the distinctions between the filiative (Jewish) and affiliative (non-Jewish) attitudes toward the Jewish tragedy, gripping the writer in its transcendent horror. Disregarding his ethnic or religious origins, the Holocaust takes over the writer’s personal life and determines his story.

scholarly journals The reconfiguration of the European Archive in contemporary German-Jewish migrant-literature

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-54
Author(s):  
Jessica Ortner
Keyword(s):  
European Archive ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Migrant Literature ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Mass Shooting ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Jewish

A considerable number of Eastern European migrant authors of Jewish origin are currently lifting Holocaust memory to a new level. Writing in German about events taking place in remote areas of the world, they expand the German framework of memory from a national to a transnational one. By partaking in reconsidering what is ‘vital for a shared remembering’ of Europe, this branch of writing reflects the European Union’s political concern for integrating the memories of the socialistic regimes in European history writing without relativising the Holocaust. In Vielleicht Esther, Katja Petrowskaja consults various national and private archives in order to recount the history of the mass shooting of over 30,000 Ukrainian Jews at Babij Jar – a canyon near Kiev. Thus, she ‘carries’ a marginalised event of the Holocaust into the German framework of memory and uncovers the layers of amnesia that have not only concealed the event amongst the Soviet public but also distorted and for ever made inaccessible her family’s past.

The Work of Testimony in the Age of Decolonization: Chronicle of a Summer, Cinema Verité, and the Emergence of the Holocaust Survivor

PMLA ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 119 (5) ◽  
pp. 1231-1246
Author(s):  
Michael Rothberg
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Discrete Event ◽  
Holocaust Survivor ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
First Time

The trial of Adolf Eichmann, in 1961, is generally considered a turning point in the history of Holocaust memory because it brought the Holocaust into the public sphere for the first time as a discrete event on an international scale. In the same year, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin's film Chronicle of a Summer appeared in France. While absent from scholarship on memory of the Nazi genocide for over forty years, Chronicle of a Summer contains a scene of Holocaust testimony that suggests the need to look beyond the Eichmann trial for alternative articulations of public Holocaust remembrance. This essay considers the juxtaposition in Chronicle of a Summer of Holocaust memory and the history of decolonization in order to rethink the “unique” place that the Holocaust has come to hold in discourses on extreme violence. The essay argues that a discourse of truth and testimony arose in French resistance to the Algerian war that shaped and was shaped by memory of the Nazi genocide.

scholarly journals The Holocaust in Lithuania: The Key Characteristics of Its History, and the Key Issues in Historiography and Cultural Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-279
Author(s):  
Stanislovas Stasiulis
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
The West ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Considerable Impact

This article is part of the special cluster titled Conceptualizations of the Holocaust in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine since the 1990s, guest edited by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. The Holocaust is the darkest page of Lithuanian history: Nearly the whole Jewish community in Lithuania was destroyed, while a part of ethnic Lithuanians participated in this destruction. This article discusses three layers and periods of the Holocaust in Lithuania that have made a considerable impact on the perception of this traumatic period in Lithuanian society. The first period deals with the Lithuanian–Jewish relations during the German occupation in Lithuania (1941–1944). The second one is related to the Soviet reoccupation of Lithuania and discussions among Lithuanian émigrés in the West (1944–1990), which shaped the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania from the ideological (Soviet) and defensive (Lithuanian émigré) perspectives. The final part of this article discusses the historiography and Holocaust memory in independent Lithuania after the 1990s. Almost thirty years of independence mark not only the re-creation of some old myths and stereotypes in Lithuania, but also new groundbreaking and open discussions in society, concerning the perception of this dark page of Lithuanian history.

scholarly journals Useful Sites of Memory: Jewish Museums in Belgrade and Sarajevo

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 237-249
Author(s):  
Yulia Oreshina
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Entire Region ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way ◽  
Jewish Museum

Understanding museum as a tool of mediation, premediation and remediation of cultural memory, I focus in this article on two case studies — the Jewish Museum in Sarajevo and Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade. While the Jewish Museum in Sarajevo positiones the city of Sarajevo as the first center of Jewish life in Balkans, the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade claims to be the only museum in ex-Yugoslavia presenting the history of Jews in the entire region. Both museums, therefore, claim to be the most important museums on this topic in the region, and certainly in a way compete to each other. What are the real stories hidden under these narratives, and which political and historical circumstances influence the fact that these two museums represent such contrasting stories? With the help of content analysis of the museum exhibitions, I detalize the narratives presented in the both case studies. In the focus of my interest is contextualization of Jewish history in the region and juxtaposition of the ways it is presented in the chosen museums. Obviously, Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade still represents the unifying Yugoslavian narrative, serving as an umbrella museum for the entire region. In case of Sarajevo, close connection between ongoing process of victimization of the recent past of the city and mythologization of preYugoslavian life in Sarajevo, together with idealization of Bosnian-Jewish relations can be observed. Additionally, I look into the way of representation of the topic of the Holocaust. In the both case studies, the way of narration of the Holocaust is closely linked to the dominant historical narrative of the country, and the museum exposition serves as yet another justification of it. In both cases, the narrative of the Holocaust is shadowed by the previously existing historical tradition — in Yugoslavian times, the Holocaust was predominantly connected to the Ustasha regime and was symbolized by Jasenovac. Nevertheless, within current political realities, the Holocaust memory and the memory of Jewish life in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina undergoes certain changes and becomes instrumentalized in many contexts.

scholarly journals Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (OSE): Jewish Humanitarian Mission for over 100 Years

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Olga Potap ◽  
Marc Cohen ◽  
Grigori Nekritch
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
Humanitarian Mission ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Welfare Society ◽  
National Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The Military ◽  
Historical Periods

The essay's primary purpose is to bring to the attention of readers interested in the history of the Jewish people that the dramatic 20th century is not only the victims of the Holocaust–and not only the heroism of the military on the battlefields. It is active resistance to barbarism–the rescue of defenseless people through daily civilian activities, nevertheless associated with a constant risk to life. This paper examines non-political and non-religious secular Jewish welfare society within Jewish political and national movements. This essay considers five historical periods of the activity of OSE. These periods are: 1912–1922; 1922–1933; 1933–1945; 1945–1950; 1950–present time. This chronological classification is somewhat imperfect; however, each period reflects the dynamic of functional changes in the initial tasks of the society to review the goals of the organization to satisfy the urgent needs of the European Jewish community in a debatable circumstance of the 20th–21st centuries.

So What Are Jews For?

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-290
Author(s):  
Adam Sutcliffe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter reviews the question on what Jews are for. It talks about the anxiety over the long-term viability of Judaism that threatened to overwhelm the question across much of the Jewish world in the late twentieth century. It describes the European Jewish life in the aftermath of the Holocaust that was shadowed by a sense of dutiful traditionalism and anxiety over the continued presence of antisemitism. The chapter also analyzes the temptation and increasing ease of assimilation that was perceived as a threat to Jewish continuity in Europe, in the United States, and elsewhere in the New World. It points out how it was clear to some Jewish leaders, while faced with the prospect of a “vanishing diaspora,” that the postwar focus on communal survival lacked the inspirational power to renew Jewish life.

Rachel Ertel. Le Shtetl. La bourgade juive de Pologne de la tradition a la modenité. Paris: Payot. 1982. Pp. 321.

2004 ◽  
pp. 409-411
Author(s):  
Władysław T. Bartoszewski
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Secondary Material ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter focuses on Rachel Ertel's Le Shtetl (1982). One of the most unusual characteristics of Poland as compared with other European countries, was a large Jewish presence in villages and townlets. In the inter-war period, approximately 30 per cent of Jews lived in such settlements. These settlements, shtetlekh, were fascinating centres of Jewish life and culture, and places of daily contacts between Jews and Christian Poles. It is therefore surprising how few books on the shtetl have been published. Hence, one welcomes every publication dealing with this important aspect of Jewish life before the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the work of Rachel Ertel does not fulfil expectations. The author, who teaches American and Jewish civilization in Paris, attempts to show the evolution of shtetlekh from tradition to modernity. The first quarter of the book is an historical summary of Jewish life in Poland from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. This is based on secondary material only, much of which is quite old. The history of Jews in Poland is treated in total isolation from Polish history, about which the author knows precious little.

Eastern European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1939

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Stanislawski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
East European ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This article notes that the study of the modern history of East European Jews is not a field driven at present by deep conceptual or ideological divides or abiding scholarly or methodological controversies. The past debates on this score between Israeli and diaspora Jewish scholarship have all but disappeared, as has even more dramatically the attempt at a Marxist version of juedische Wissenschaft. While the major works of the founders of the field from Simon Dubnov on ought to be studied and the impressive resurgence of interest in the history and culture of East European Jewry in the modern age is underway, the work is still largely undone. The crucial challenge to the field is not to succumb to the lachrymose and romanticized stereotypes of Jewish life in Eastern Europe while continuing to explore the history of this the largest Jewry in the world before the Holocaust.

Between Identity and Anonymity: Art and History in Aharon Megged's Foiglman

AJS Review ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Feldhay Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
True Story ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Young Survivors ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Over Time

In a recent article, “Israeli Literature Over Time,”Aharon Megged describes his work as “unremittingly concerned with burning national issues,” mainly with the issue of Israel′s relationship to the Diaspora.1 Megged′s intense preoccupation with the Zionist ideology of the negation of the Diaspora emerged in his 1955 story “Yad va-shem” (“The Name”). The story presents a scathing criticism of Israel′s dissociation from the history of the Diaspora and especially from the catastrophe of the Holocaust. “Yad va-shem” was followed by an article entitled “Tarbutenu ha-yeshana ve-ha-hadasha” (“Our Old and New Culture”) in which Megged deplored Israel′s severance of its Diaspora roots and urged a reexamination of the negative attitude toward the destroyed European Jewish culture.In 1984, Megged published Massa ha-yeladim el ha-aretz ha-muvtachat (“The Children's Journey”), a novel based on a true story about a group of young survivors of the Holocaust on their way to Palestine.3 This work, as Dan Laor notes in his review, “offers a perspective of the Diaspora in the Holocaust which differs from [the typical Israeli attitude of] contempt infused with pity” toward the Diaspora Jew.

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