Imagining the Holocaust [Paperback]

InImagining the Holocaust, Daniel R. Schwarz examines widely read Holocaust narratives which have shaped the way we understand and respond to the events of that time. He begins with first person narratives - Wiesel'sNightand Levi'sSurvival at Auschwitz- and then turns to searingly realistic fictions such as Borowski'sThis Way to the Gas Chamber, Ladies and Gentlemen, before turning to the Kafkaesque parables of Appelfeld and the fantastic cartoons of Spiegleman'sMausbooks. Schwarz argues that as we move further away from the original events, the narratives authors use to render the Holocaust horror evolve to include fantasy and parable, and he shows how diverse audiences respond differently to these highly charged and emotional texts.

Introduction: The Ethics of Imagining the Holocaust: Representation, Responsibility, and Reading *Part I: Memoirs* The Ethics of Reading Wiesel's Night * Painful Memories: The Agony of Primo Levi * World Into Words:The Diary of Anne Frankand Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan'sThe War from Within*Part II: Realism* Tadeusz Borowski'sThis Way to the Gas Chambers, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Other Stories * John Hersey'sThe Wall: Fiction as History in the First Generation of Holocaust Fiction * Popular Fiction: Gerald Green'sHolocaust: A Novel of Survival and Triumph* Beyond the Camps: Kosinski'sThe Painted Bird* The Ontological Problems of Docufiction: William Styron'sSophie's Choice/i * Kineally's and Spielberg's Schindler's List : Realistic Novel into Epic Film *Part III: Myth, Parable, and Fable* Schwarz-Bart's Mythopoeic and Historical Humanism: The Last of the Just * Aharon Appelfeld's Parables * Illuminating Distortion and Historical Cartoon: Leslie Epstein's King of the Jews *Part IV: Fantasy* The Comic Grotesque of Spiegleman's Maus * Cynthia Ozick's Fables: The Shawl and Rosa * Bruno Schulz's Nightmare in The Street of CrlƒÁ