History with Heart: Canadian Holocaust Literature for Young People

This article addresses the emergence of the Canadian Holocaust literature canon for young readers, closely examining the work of Carol Matas and Kathy Kacer to explore how the Holocaust can be narrated for children. Largely understudied despite their productivity and popularity, Matas and Kacer rely on the narrative strategy of blending invented or imagined characters with factually accurate situations and experiences. By using the tools that historical fiction offers, these two prolific Canadian authors demonstrate the possibilities of multifaceted, educational, and engaging texts about the Holocaust for young people while preserving the “open hearts” of the characters at the centre of their stories.Cet article traite de l’émergence de la littérature canadienne sur l’Holocauste pour les jeunes lecteurs, en examinant de près le travail de Carol Matas et de Kathy Kacer pour explorer comment l’Holocauste peut être raconté aux enfants. En dépit de leur productivité et de leur popularité, Matas et Kacer n’ont pas fait l’objet d’études approfondies. Elles s’appuient sur une stratégie narrative qui consiste à mêler des personnages inventés ou imaginés à des situations et des expériences factuelles exactes. En utilisant les outils qu’offre la fiction historique, ces deux auteures canadiennes prolifiques démontrent les possibilités de textes à facettes multiples, éducatifs et engageants sur l’Holocauste pour les jeunes,

Investigating Terminologies in Teaching Literature: A Corpus Study

<p>Regarding the literature subjects provided by the English Language Education Department, University of Muhammadiyah Malang, some students conduct researches on literature in their thesis. They find difficulties in doing the research as lacking of experience in discussing the thing and lacking vocabulary in describing terminologies. This research was designed to help the students whose major is English Education to maintain their study, especially on teaching English literature by finding out the terminologies in teaching literature books in terms of their frequency, example of their use, and meaning (in context). The objects of this research are <em>Teaching and Learning English Literature</em> by Ellie Chambers and Marshall Gregory, and <em>Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film</em> by Robert Eaglestone and Barry Langfor (Ed.) talking about teaching literature. The research method is document analysis. In number, there is no significant difference between them. No literary terminology that is more than 250 words. Beside, since they talk the same scope, the meanings of the terminologies are the same. Further, both present different use of terminologies. In some sentences, the terminologies are used to explain something closer to literature, yet in some other sentences, the terminologies are used to describe or explain the things related to teaching literature.</p>

LITERATURE AND THE HOLOCAUST: INVESTIGATING THE VALUE OF A LITERARY HOLOCAUST EDUCATION

The Holocaust is one of the most researched and documented genocides in history, and yet it remains an inconceivable tragedy, for it is challenging to comprehend the mass killings, inhumane conditions, and sheer hatred that the European Jews faced during World War II. Literature has long been used as an educational tool about the realities of life. In contrast to history textbooks, literature allows readers to dive into the psyche of those persecuted; adheres to the historical events, while permitting artistic exploration of personal narratives; and creates a space where the unspeakable experiences and dehumanization during the Holocaust can be spoken, shared, and contended with. The literary reading process entails a dialogue between the reader and the narrative, thus generating an inquiry-based education on the Holocaust. Holocaust literature is sustained by survivors’ stories of resilience. Although these tales of resilience often do not have traditionally happy endings, they depict that people must contend with their past suffering and offer an educational tool to transmit testimony in the hopes of inspiring resilience in others. Holocaust literature provides a platform to meaningfully communicate personal narratives, which demystifies the tragedy as an isolated incident, educates readers on the historical realities of the Holocaust, and places responsibility on everyone to resist indifference. Through exploration of the artistic forms and historical elements of selected works of Holocaust literature, this paper will demonstrate that literature is a valuable tool in educating on the Holocaust and has merit as an integral part of school curricula.

“Die Grenzen des Sagbaren”: H. G. Adler (on) Writing Literature after the Holocaust

Taking the next step in our understanding of the testimony of Holocaust literature involves taking a step back to recuperate a theoretical approach that does not cede all human attempts at knowledge to skepticism. At odds with Theodor Adorno about the possibility of writing poetry after Auschwitz, Adler, a survivor of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, transformed his experiences into fiction. In his novel, Eine Reise, published in 1962, and in his 1965 essay on “Die Grenzen des Sagbaren,” or the limits of the sayable, Adler addresses these dilemmas. While Adorno collapses traditions of value into barbarity, Adler struggles to maintain, describe and explain the possibility of human resistance to evil. I examine Adler’s nuanced use of language in these two works and show that the rage and epistemological uncertainty that dominate the post-Holocaust world do not necessarily lead to the destruction of all traditional forms of meaning.

Dialogical Memory and Immemorial Poetics: The Ethical Imperatives of Holocaust Literature

Drawing from Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical ethics and Paul Celan’s dialogical poetics, this article interrogates the impossible memorial and ethical demands that literary responses to the Holocaust place upon their readers. While Levinas reveals our position as summoned to radical responsibility, Celan shows us how that responsibility plays out in the form of ethical reading. By attending to the imperative commands found in Celan’s longest poem, “Engführung”, this article demonstrates how Holocaust literature memorializes the Shoah through an invocation of Levinasian ethics and the concept of the immemorial—that which exceeds memory. Following the discussion of Levinas, Celan, and “Engführung”, I turn to Primo Levi’s “Shema”, a paradigmatic text that likewise directly challenges us, calling us into question as readers during the moment of reading and demanding an attentiveness to the text that proves beyond our ability to deliver. Throughout, I aim to show how dialogical memory enables us to better comprehend the ethical burden we encounter in the literary texts of the Holocaust.