Nazi Concentration Camps (Film, 1945): Can the Holocaust Be Adequately Represented on Film?

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The Holocaust

Dov Levin and Zvie A. Brown, The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews in Kovno in the Second World War, trans. Jessica Setbon. Jerusalem: Gefen, 2014. 496 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Armed Resistance ◽  
Second World ◽  
And Training

This chapter reviews the book The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews in Kovno in the Second World War (2014), by Dov Levin and Zvie A. Brown, translated by Jessica Setbon. The Story of an Underground is about the Jews of Kovno (Kaunas) who founded an underground movement during the Holocaust. The armed underground developed a plan to escape to the forests and join the partisans. The ghetto was liquidated in the summer of 1944. Many of the remaining Jews were sent to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps. The book highlights the dilemmas of Jewish armed resistance such as difficulties in obtaining weapons and training, some of the failures of the resistance, and some of the positive aspects of those who thought differently from members of the armed resistance.

scholarly journals The Holocaust in Slovak Drama

2017 ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Dagmar Kročanová
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Slovak Society ◽  
Dramatic Characters ◽  
Second World

The article discusses several Slovak plays with the theme of the Holocaust; namely Ticho (Silence) by Juraj Váh, Holokaust (Holocaust) by Viliam Klimáček, and Rabínka (The Woman Rabbi) by Anna Grusková. It also briefly refers to Návrat do života (Return to Life) and Antigona a tí druhí (Antigone and Those Others) by Peter Karvaš, both mediating traumas from concentration camps. Two plays (Ticho and Návrat do života) were written and staged immediately after the Second World War. Karvaš’s Antigona is a rare occurrence of the theme in Slovak drama during the Communism (in the early 1960s), whereas Klimáček’s and Grusková’s plays are recent, both staged in 2012. The article focuses on several aspects of these five plays: on dramatic characters representing “victims”, “witnesses” and “culprits” (Panas, quoted in Gawliński 2007: 19); on references about and/or representation of the Holocaust in dramatic texts; and on the type of the conflict(s) in the plays. It also mentions specific approaches of respective authors when dealing with the theme of the Holocaust, as well as with the relevance of their reflection of the theme for Slovak society in respective periods.

scholarly journals ’PARLO…’: A CATALAN VOICE FROM THE HOLOCAUST: WRITER AND SURVIVOR OF MAUTHAUSEN JOAQUIM AMAT-PINIELLA SHATTERS FRANCOIST MANDATED SILENCE

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Maureen Tobin Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Affective Responses ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Compensatory Damages ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
Poetic Work

Following the retreat to France of half a million Spaniards in the winter of ’38/39 and as a result of the Nazi occupation, 10,000-15,000 Spaniards were deported to concentration camps. Among them was the writer Joaquim Amat-Piniella (1913-1974). His novel K.L. Reich, whose title alludes to the stamp impressed on all objects within the Nazi Reich’s concentration camps, creates a fictional world that reflects the realities within Mauthausen. That author writes in a draft (without date), that with this story his wish was not to focus on the horrors, but rather to document (“manar un record”), and to relate the historical catastrophes of “cruelty, misery, suffering, but also hope.” His poetic work Les llunyanies (The Far Away Lands) also reveals what Amat denoted as his “white hour,” an awakening of conscience and consciousness, the insistence on what is human and humane precisely because he was able to endure four and a half years of brutality. In addition to his novel and poetry, Amat-Piniella’s political efforts following his liberation promoted the reconciliarion that resulted from a sense of justice. With his poetry, this native of Manresa expressed the gamut of his affective responses to Mauthausen. With K.L. Reich, Amat-Piniella gives voice to the Republicans whose exile led to a concentrationary sentence. With his activism, he did everything possible to vindicate the ex-prisoners and obtain for them their due “indemnización” (compensatory damages) and thus overcome the obstacles imposed by the repressive forces. In spite of numerous hurdles, Amat was triumphant.

The Pink Triangle

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-162
Author(s):  
Craig Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Gay Liberation ◽  
The West ◽  
German State ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nazi Persecution

This chapter is about how the memory of persecution decisively shaped 1970s homosexual politics. First, the chapter explores the ‘rediscovery’ of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, explaining how the model of the Holocaust was sometimes appropriated as part of this process. The chapter then shows how memory of this persecution, combined with the experience of contemporary discrimination, produced a profound alienation on the part of left-wing gay men from the West German state. Following an analysis of how the pink triangle became a transnational symbol, this chapter evaluates discourses of victimhood in gay liberation. Though the pink triangle was reclaimed from its origins as a badge of shame in the concentration camps, it never became an unequivocal symbol of pride. Finally, the chapter explores how, in the late 1970s, activists of all stripes, the commercial gay press, and the first openly gay parliamentary candidates coalesced around making the history of past persecution a central plank in their efforts to insert themselves into the West German mainstream.

scholarly journals Jewish Doctors’ Challenges in the Death Camps: Ethical Dilemmas? Choiceless Choices? The Human Condition?

Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Ross Halpin
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Will To Live ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Significant Factors ◽  
The Human Condition

Most commentators have focused on ethical dilemmas and the idea that they were core to the actions of and decisions by Jewish doctors in SS concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust. While I recognize Jewish doctors did face ethical dilemmas, in this article, I shift my attention to include two other significant factors: choiceless choices, defined by the eminent Holocaust historian Lawrence Langer as “crucial decisions [that] did not reflect options between life and death, but between one form of abnormal response and another, both imposed by a situation that was in no way of the victim’s own choosing,”  and the human condition, whereby decisions and actions were triggered by personal traits and past experiences in response to particular situations and circumstances. Inherent in all three factors is the tenaciousness of reality and how the abhorrent conditions, immorality, inhumanity and evilness cast a shadow over every moment of the Jewish doctor’s life. My thesis is that decision-making was not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional. For the Jewish doctor every incident became a source of dread and tragedy. They were often not trained to treat some diseases or perform surgery and lacked experience to work in such conditions and cope emotionally and psychologically. I will attempt to show that how a person responds to an ethical dilemma is based on his or her own experiences and reasoning, and how they reacted to sudden and inexplicable incidents that threatened life or impacted survival induced abnormal actions and decisions. As Jewish doctors they were driven to be healers, to be normal, but they were forced by circumstances to kill or become perpetrators, acting abnormally. Tragically the abnormal became the norm. The Jewish doctors were professionally trained and culturally socialized to continue their roles as doctors. Nevertheless, they were human and were driven by the innate will to live.

scholarly journals Ludobójstwo w świetle wybranych relacji więźniów obozów koncentracyjnych Auschwitz, Majdanek, Stutthof i Gross-Rosen

2020 ◽  
pp. 251-263
Author(s):  
Lucyna Sadzikowska
Keyword(s):  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Former Prisoners ◽  
The Holocaust

The article is devoted to the analysis of testimonies, accounts, memoirs, ego-documents by concentration camp prisoners of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Stutthof, and Gross-Rosen. Thesource material kept in the said KLs’ archives contains a multitude of individual histories of survivors of the genocide, either described in detail or concisely noted down. What the authorfocuses on is the variety of those testimonies to suffering and tragedy of people incarcerated in concentration camps. At the same time, she observes that for the former prisoners, decades after leaving the camps, the Shoah and hell are synonymous with genocide. The most common terms used by them to describe genocide are: mass extermination, the Holocaust, Annihilation, hell, the Shoah, hideous violence, total annihilation – both physical and moral.

scholarly journals The silence of fragmentation ethical representations of trauma in young adult holocaust literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talia Crockett
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Historical Accuracy ◽  
Do So

© 2020 Talia E. Crockett. Holocaust literature is a challenging space in which to write, seeking to convey an event that cannot truly be represented in words: the systematic destruction of millions of lives, an estimated 1.5 million of which were children who were permanently silenced in the concentration camps. Young adult authors have the added challenge of creating texts that convey the trauma of the Holocaust in ways that are accessible to teenage readers, attempting to reconcile a moral duty to historical accuracy with the desire for an engaging, empathetic novel. This article addresses the evolving use of silence and fragmentation to represent the trauma of the Holocaust in three young adult novels from the last thirty-five years: Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose (1992), Marianne Fredriksson’s Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks, 1985), and Sharon Hart-Green’s Come Back for Me (2017). As this event recedes further into history, historical knowledge of it may be in decline, while anti-Semitism is still prevalent. The Holocaust is something about which we must continue to speak, but now we must do so in different ways. Building on the work of Lydia Kokkola and Leona Toker, this article demonstrates how silence has been used to represent the trauma of the Holocaust as we become increasingly removed from the event. If a traumatic event is understood as it returns to a victim in shards of memories, then fragmentation can be used to recreate the experience for a reader, representing the chaos as opposed to attempting to order it. By writing in a form rife with silent gaps in narrative, knowledge, and understanding, young adult authors can select that which they reveal to their readers according to present historical knowledge while simultaneously mimicking the chaotic, fractured experience of trauma itself. Ultimately, that which is not said be-comes as powerful as that which is.

scholarly journals The Serbian idea in an era of confused historical consciousness

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Milovan Mitrovic
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Interpretation

This paper, represents a hypothetical consideration of the phenomenology of the Serbian national idea, within the traumatic circumstances of the breakup of the Yugoslav state at the end of the 20th century, when the Serbian national issue was reopened in an exceptionally unfavorable geopolitical context for the Serbian people. The author specifically analyzes the ideological and political factors behind the Serbian confusion with the theoretical framework of Agnes Heller's critical interpretation of history, which speaks of the 'confusion of historical consciousness' that began with World War I and was magnified by the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Gulag and the European concentration camps. The author of this article adds the great Powers' Balkan interventions during the world wars to their dishonorable historical legacy, ending with their role in the creation and the breakup of Yugoslavia, at the expense of the Serbian people. The conclusion contains an appeal for a more rational national self-consciousness, founded in positive Serbian tradition and real insights into the social conditions that determine the processes in today's Serbian society and its environment.

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