“Holocaust Literature: Humanity Reborn”
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3 word format
document in English
literature
school essay
published 19/10/2007
review : Completed
level : Advanced
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SummaryIf Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox. Confessions of the unspeakable, the unthinkable in written word. And yet it exists, tangible, published. In memoir and fiction and essays, these expressions and representations brought to life by countless authors, countless survivors. The witnesses to apocalypse found. No, Holocaust literature is only a paradox when it is misunderstood, when the intentions of these authors, men and women like Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, are mistaken for historical value alone. To represent the unrepresentable, to represent the Holocaust, would be paradoxical; but Holocaust literature only represents personal experience. The Holocaust in its entirety is inexpressible, beyond comprehension. But individual stories and the individuals themselves are not. We, the readers, who hunger sixty years later to understand the Holocaust, we are responsible for creating this paradox, for we expect the impossible from these texts. These works are pieces of human experience, maybe even pieces of humanity itself. Experience, not explanation. Holocaust literature is unique to each author, for each experience is unique, each story lived differently, told differently. In a sense, maybe the term “Holocaust literature” is the paradox: it is literature instead about individuals transformed in the face of inhumanity’s darkest hour.
Table of Contents
- If Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox.
- Memory does not work like history. History is laden with facts, statistics, dates and geographical particulars.
- A strictly historical approach to the Holocaust is impossible in such literature, because experience itself contradicts fact.
- baring witness to the Holocaust is a struggle for these authors.
- If the Holocaust were left to history, if it were possible to explain the reasoning behind the Third Reich or to understand that special corner of human nature that contains the aptitude for grand-scale murder, then the Holocaust could be forgotten.
- Like literature, we expect much from history.
- They only represent themselves, their experiences, their memories.
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