4. Shoah and memory

“Shoah and memory” looks at the Holocaust through the lens of Jewish literature worldwide, focusing on the differences between the works of Anne Frank (Diary of a Young Girl), Elie Wiesel (Night), Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem), and others, studying the reception each of these works received in Jewish and non-Jewish milieus. There is a connection between memory and testimonial literature, which can especially be seen in fiction as it intersects with the anti-Semitic trend known as “Holocaust denial." We have cases such as “invented” memoirs, for example, The Painted Bird by Jerzy Koziński. There are also a number of nonliterary Holocaust narratives such as the films Shoah and Schindler’s List and the graphic novel Maus.

Masculinidades en Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg 1981)

La obra de Steven Spielberg está comenzando a gozar de reconocimiento académico en España. David Caldevilla Domínguez publica en este año 2005, fruto de su tesis doctoral, El sello Spielberg, localizando los estilemas del director apoyándose en la de momento trilogía de Indiana Jones. Precede a esta obra la versión divulgativa de otra tesis doctoral, realizada por Antonio Sánchez-Escalonilla (1994), publicada en 1995 y extendida en 2004.Fuera de España cabe también destacar la compilación de Yosefa Loshitzky (1997) centrada en Schindler’s List (Spielberg 1993), y la de Charles Silet (2002), que abarca diversas obras del director.Pero ninguno de los autores mencionados cifra en la representación de masculinidades la cuestión de sus investigaciones, hueco que nos proponemos rellenar, en lo que atañe a Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg 1981a), en este artículo.

Rose-Colored Genocide: Hollywood, Harmonizing Narratives, and the Cinematic Legacy of Anne Frank’s Diary in the United States

Drawing from literary and cultural studies, this paper situates U.S. adaptations of Anne Frank’s diary in the 1950s within a lineage of other films about historical genocide, including Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda, and The Killing Fields. Analysis of these narrative adaptations matters because it helps us better understand the danger of what critic Dominick LaCapra calls “harmonizing narratives,” or stories that provide the viewer with an “unwarranted sense of spiritual uplift” (14). Tracing the metamorphosis of Frank’s own diary from play to film adaptation, this article builds on existing scholarship to focus on how, in the wake of what has become known as the Holocaust, Hollywood began to construct popular and simplified understandings of complex genocidal crimes—all in the name of celebrating globalized humanity. In the first part of the article, I take a longer view of these adaptations by situating U.S. interpretations of Frank’s diary within a lineage of other Hollywood versions of historical genocide, including The Killing Fields, Schindler’s List, and Hotel Rwanda. I argue that in making Anne Frank’s story morally simplifying and ultimately uplifting for U.S. audiences—in other words, shaping it into what critic Dominick LaCapra calls a “harmonizing narrative”—these Broadway and Hollywood adaptations privileged rose-colored narratology for that would influence future mainstream cinematic representations in dangerous ways. The second part of the paper then considers cinematic alternatives from outside of Hollywood (such as Canada, Rwanda, and Spain) that challenge these harmonizing narratives by enlisting a mise en abyme structure—in other words, the nesting of stories within stories—that ultimately suggest the full representation of genocide is impossible. By making false promises of harmony, Hollywood’s interpretation of Frank’s story has, in turn, limited our understanding of subsequent genocides. On the other hand, alternative modes of cinematic storytelling—most notably, ones such as Ararat that fracture a coherent narrative—compel the audience to grapple with questions of spectatorship, agency, and above all, the problems of representation.

From Lanzmann’s Circle of Flames to Bodies in Pain: Anglo-American Holocaust Fiction and Representations of the Gas Chamber

This article discusses the apparent desire in Anglo-American Holocaust fiction to form a deeper connection to the horror of the Holocaust by recreating scenes of suffering in the gas chamber. Using Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain, Alison Landsberg’s theory of ‘prosthetic memory’ and the concept of ‘feeling-with’ as outlined by Sonia Kruks, it discusses the motives underlying these representations and what an audience stands to learn from these bodily encounters with the Holocaust past. The article begins by discussing texts that explore the notions of temporal and emotional distance and the unreachability of the Holocaust dead, while also reflecting the corresponding impulse to reconnect with the murdered by physicalising them as bodies in pain. It then moves on to works that aim to make the experience of death in the gas chamber literally inhabitable for present-day nonwitnesses. In pursuing this argument, the article focuses on six representative texts: Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), Bryan Singer’s Apt Pupil (1998), Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone (2001), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006 and 2008, for the book and film respectively), In Paradise (2014) by Peter Matthiessen and Mick Jackson’s Denial (2016).

Leopold Kozłowski

This chapter offers an obituary for Leopold Kozłowski. It describes Leopold as the last klezmer, who died at the venerable age of 100 on 12 March. It recalls how Leopold spent several months in the labour camp at Kurowice, recounting how he taught a Nazi officer the accordion in exchange for food, and how the Nazis forced him to compose a “death tango” and play while other Jews were led to their deaths. It also mentions Leopold's survival from the labour camp and resettlement in Kraków, where he studied conducting at the Higher State Music School. The chapter notes Leopold's composition of music for films and the theatre, even acting in the film Schindler's List while serving as an adviser on the music of the ghetto. It highlights his performances in Poland, Europe, the United States, and Israel, which he continued until the end of his life.

STRESS, TRAUMA, PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, QUALITY OF LIFE, AND RESILIENCE OF WOMEN AS REFLECTED IN VARIOUS MOVIES AROUND THE WORLD

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between stressor due to restriction of women movement, traumatic events due to war, sexual abuse or domestic harassment and psychological symptoms, quality of life, and resilience. To explore the topic I analyzed samples consisted of 16 randomly selected subjects from sixteen various movies - Deliver Us From Evil, Forbidden Games, Metamorphosis, Monster, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Cemetery Club, Schindler’s List, The Cemetery Club, The Magdalene, The White Ribbon, Two Women, Taken, Empty Suitcase, Damini- Lightning, Dahan (Crossfire) and Ghajini.