Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Banki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Final Solution ◽  
World War ◽  
Primo Levi ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Individual

The book begins by looking at the arguments made by Holocaust survivors (such as Ruth Kluger, Simon Wiesenthal, and Primo Levi) for the impossibility of forgiveness beyond any subjective volition. As the drive towards closure and normalization, forgiveness has been interpreted, particularly since World War II, to be the enemy of justice. Against this background, Eva Mozes Kor’s Forgiving Doctor Mengele argues on the contrary that forgiveness is a means of self-empowerment of the individual. Through forgiveness, the individual can heal themselves from the traumas of the past. The introduction puts forward the thesis that what Eva Mozes Kor calls forgiveness is in fact not forgiveness, but a therapy of mourning in the name of forgiveness. What forgiveness is in relation to the Holocaust must be thought otherwise. It should be determined in relation to what Vladimir Jankélévitch calls the “inexpiable” character of Nazi crimes, i.e., a sphere foreign to any form of reconciliation, mediation, reparation, salvation, normalization, mourning, healing, apology, or excuse. If the value of forgiveness is not to be the philosophical and religious ally of the Nazi Final Solution, then it must be thought as irreducible to any pre-given finality or achieved normalization.

Remediation and hypermediacy: Ezekiel’s World as a case in point

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-229
Author(s):  
Ayelet Kohn ◽  
Rachel Weissbrod
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
World War ◽  
Graphic Narrative ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Graphic Narratives ◽  
Jewish Resistance ◽  
Resistance Movement

This article deals with Kovner’s graphic narrative Ezekiel’s World (2015) as a case of remediation and hypermediacy. The term ‘remediation’ refers to adaptations which involve the transformation of the original work into another medium. While some adaptations strive to eliminate the marks of the previous medium, others highlight the interplay between different media, resulting in ‘hypermediacy’. The latter approach characterizes Ezekiel’s World due to its unique blend of artistic materials adapted from different media. The author, Michael Kovner, uses his paintings to depict the story of Ezekiel – an imaginary figure based on his father, the poet Abba Kovner who was one of the leaders of the Jewish resistance movement during World War II. While employing the conventions of comics and graphic narratives, the author also makes use of readymade objects such as maps and photos, simulates the works of famous artists and quotes Abba Kovner’s poems. These are indirect ways of confronting the traumas of Holocaust survivors and ‘the second generation’. Dealing with the Holocaust in comics and graphic narratives (as in Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, 1986) is no longer an innovation, nor is their use as a means to deal with trauma; what makes this graphic narrative unique is the encounter between the works of the poet and the painter, which combine to create an exceptionally complex work integrating poetry, art and graphic narration.

Clinical/Abnormal Perspectives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R. Mastroianni
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
German Population ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Chapter 4 focuses on the considerable psychological literature devoted to the question of the role played by psychopathology in the Nazi movement and the Holocaust. Both the Nazi leaders and the German population as a whole were thought by some to exhibit signs of psychopathology. The dominant paradigm in psychology before, during, and shortly after World War II was psychoanalytic, and Freudian analyses were common. The notion that psychopathology played a significant role in either Nazism or the Holocaust has largely been abandoned. The psychological consequences of the horrific experiences to which many Holocaust survivors were subjected led to the identification of a disorder called by some “concentration camp syndrome.” Our modern-day understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) owes a considerable debt to the legacy of Holocaust survivors.

Holocaust and theology

Exchange ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-222
Author(s):  
Anton Houtepen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
The Past ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Clash Of Civilisations ◽  
Intercultural Theology

AbstractHolocaust Theology, first developed by Jewish scholars, has had a definite impact on the Christian attitude with regard to Judaism. It made Christianity aware of its Anti-Judaist thinking and acting in the past, one of the root causes of Anti-Semitism and one of the factors that led to the Holocaust in Nazi-Germany during World War II. Similar forms of industrial killing and genocide did happen, however, elsewhere in the world as well. Most important of all was the ' metamorphosis ' of the Christian concept of God: no longer did God's almighty power and benevolent will for his chosen people dominate the theological discourse, but God's compassion for those who suffer and and the Gospel of Peace and human rights. Mission to the Jews was gradually replaced by Christian-Jewish dialogue. Both in mission studies, ecumenism and intercultural theology, theologians seem to have received the fundamental truth of the early patristic saying: There is no violence in God. This makes a new alliance of theology with the humanities possible on the level of academia and enables a critical stand of theology against the political power play causing the actual clash of civilisations.

scholarly journals Everyday Life in the Ancient World: Four Re-Collections

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lynn Jenner
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Activity Theory ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Active Reading ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Before And After

<p>The thesis is made up of four separate but related texts recording the author’s investigations of loss, searches and re-constructions. Questions of ownership are also examined, with particular reference to objects of cultural and artistic significance. The Holocaust is a major focus, especially attitudes of the New Zealand government and New Zealanders themselves to the refugees who wished to settle here before and after World War II.  The thesis is a hybrid of critical and creative writing. The first three texts, “The autobiographical museum”, “History-making” and “Cairn”, are also hybrid in genre, containing found text, new prose and poems, discussion of other writers’ work and the author’s experiments in ‘active reading’. The fourth text is an Index which offers an alternative reading of the other three texts and helps the reader to locate material. While somewhat different from each other in form, all texts focus on the activity of gathering objects and information. All four texts are fragmented rather than complete.  Interviews with curators, education officers and CEOs in two Australian museums that have Holocaust exhibits provided information on the aims and processes of these exhibits. Meetings with six Holocaust survivors who act as volunteer guides in museums and reactions of visitors to the museums provided other perspectives on the work of the museums. The author also reports on visits to the Holocaust Gallery at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand in Wellington.  Activity Theory, a cultural-historical model often applied to the analysis of learning and pedagogy, is used in the thesis as a metaphorical backdrop to the author’s own activity. The author’s focus on intentions, tools, processes, division of labour and financial pressures reflects the influence of Activity Theory as does the author’s willingness to let understanding take shape gradually through tentative conclusions, some of which are later overturned.  Over the period of the research, records of the past are recovered and re-examined in the present, as was intended. Individual and collective memory, including archival records, fiction and poetry are resources for these investigations. The author receives an object lesson in the power of the informal networking role of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, as well as benefiting from its formal displays and materials.  During the research the author writes records of the present because it seems necessary to do so. By the time the research ends, these have become records of the past – an outcome which Emanuel Ringelblum would have predicted but was a surprise to the author.</p>

Between Globalization and Particularization of Memories: Screen Images of the Holocaust in Germany and Poland

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna K. Stimmel
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
World War ◽  
Visual Material ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
The Past ◽  
Film Directors ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Way

With the increasing medialization of cultural memory regardingWorld War II and the Holocaust, cinematic texts become significantcomponents of our remembrance. Not only videotaped witness testimoniesbut also documentaries and fictional films make up the growingbody of visual material that tells of the wartime past and the waywe remember it. Today, the great majority of the filmmakers depictingthe Holocaust on screen—as well as their audiences—belong tothe so-called second and third generations. Born too late to have witnessedthe murder of Europe’s Jews, these film directors nonethelessdeclare a very strong personal connection to the past they neverknew. Their renditions of this past is, as Marianne Hirsch argues,driven by the “postmemory,” a type of memory in which the connectionto its object or source is mediated not through recollectionbut rather through imagination and creation.

Practical Approaches to Home Food Dehydration

1982 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 492-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEGGY DUGGAN MAGGARD
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Food Preservation ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Home Food ◽  
The Individual ◽  
At Home

Preserving foods by drying is one of the oldest known methods of food preservation. Until recently, freezing and canning have been the methods most people used to preserve foods at home. During the past 50 years, science and technology developed during World War II led to increased commercial drying of a wide. variety of foods. Most of this information has not been readily available to the individual who wants to dry foods at home. Individuals wanting to do home drying, until approximately the last 10 years, could only find bits and pieces of information on how to do it. Hopefully, this article will help eliminate some of the confusion that occurs because of conflicting information found in the scarce literature that is available on drying foods at home.

Reading the Writings on the Walls— Remembering East Berlin

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Katharina Gerstenberger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
West Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Sixtieth Anniversary

Between the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II more than fifteen years later, Germany witnessed not only a proliferation of events and experiences to be remembered but also of traditions of memory. Before the fall of the wall, remembrance of the past in West Germany meant, above all, commemoration of the Nazi past and the memory of the Holocaust. Germany's unification had a significant impact on cultural memory not only because the fall of the wall itself was an event of memorable significance but also because it gave new impulses to debates about the politics of memory.

But Thou Shalt Go unto My Country and to My Kindred: Ambivalence about Family and Homeland in Israeli Songs about the Holocaust

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Erga Heller
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
World War ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
Prosodic Structures

The themes of “homeland” and “a place where one belongs” are integral parts of literary works about the Holocaust, as well as of popular songs about the Holocaust. In 1988, two successful albums of Israeli popular music were released: Heat of July-August, by Shlomo Artzi and Ashes and Dust, by Yehuda Poliker. Both Artzi’s song “In Germany before the War,” and the title song of the latter album, written by Yaacov Gilad and Yehuda Poliker, describe a dialogue between sons and their mothers, Holocaust survivors. In both songs, the sons, now adult Israelis born after World War II, address their mothers, who seem to live or travel through their memories from or through a foreign land. The dialogue, which may be understood as a soliloquy, expresses ambivalent memories about belonging to a family, a nation, a homeland, and the Holocaust. This paper suggests an interpretive reading of these layers of ambivalent memories as part of the construction of a uniquely Israeli-Zionist-Jewish voice of remembrance that draws on biblical references, musical and prosodic structures and references, and Israeli cultural analysis.

scholarly journals Shattered Encounters: From My Father's House (1947) to My Father's House (2008)

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liat Steir-Livny
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Motivating Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
Profound Change ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Shed Light

In the aftermath of World War II, approximately 500,000 Holocaust survivors immigrated to Israel. The complex experiences of this shattered group and their encounters with Israeli society were reduced to a series of superficial representations in Israeli feature films. In films produced both in pre-state Israel, and in the early decades of the fledgling state, Holocaust survivors were depicted as traumatized individuals saved by other Jews and transformed into active, strong, healthy civilians in the new land. By the late 1970s, however, Israeli society had changed, as did the cinematic representation of the encounter between native Israelis and the Holocaust survivors. A shift to a dystopian depiction took place, in which a traumatized group of people, neglected by veteran Israelis, were relegated to the margins of society. This article will analyze the profound change that took place between earlier and later representations. It will discuss the motivating factors and cinematic depictions through the lenses of two films which tell the same story, but from completely different perspectives: My Father's House (Herbert Klein, 1947) and My Father's House (Danny Rozenberg, 2008). While sharing the same title, these films were produced in different eras, and thus, shed light on different depictions of similar encounters.

The Holocaust and Polish-Jewish Relations in Sociological Studies

2008 ◽  
pp. 53-75
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Melchior
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Sociological Studies

The past can be described in different ways by historians and sociologists. They differ in their attitudes toward sources for their studies, and in terms of research sensitivity, which directs their analyses towards given aspects of the past. This text focuses on selected sociological studies of the Holocaust and issues of Polish–Jewish relations (before and during World War II as well as during the immediate postwar years). First I shall refer to sociological works using the historical prospective in their description of Polish–Jewish relations and/or the Holocaust, and, second, to studies (both historical and sociological) which employ categories of sociological analysis in their description. By referring to Nechama Tec's works, I shall present the methodological problems of sociological studies.

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