Between Documentary and Provocation. New Tendencies (not only) in Contemporary Polish Holocaust Literature
The Holocaust can be seen as a transnational crime, and a collective trauma of universal extension. Therefore national approaches could be seen only as an example out of many others. The year 2000 was the starting point of a new area, since the transformation of Holocaust memory went global. A se...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | ces |
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Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta
2018-08-01
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| Series: | Slovo a Smysl |
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| Online Access: | https://wordandsense.ff.cuni.cz/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2018/07/Hans-Christian_Trepte_171-184.pdf |
| Summary: | The Holocaust can be seen as a transnational crime, and a collective trauma of universal extension.
Therefore national approaches could be seen only as an example out of many others. The year 2000
was the starting point of a new area, since the transformation of Holocaust memory went global.
A sensitive subject is the problem of poetization and aestheticization of the Holocaust between fact
and fiction. In the meantime the generation of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren has taken
over the responsibility in memorizing the Holocaust. New literary approaches are made in different
artistic forms and expressions, expressing the Holocaust in forms of the satire, humor, irony, and
grotesque, and we may state a remarkable ‘visual turn’, too. Giving evidence is still very important
to prevent collective amnesia, also reacting on forms of Holocaust fatigue. In my paper I am concentrating
mainly on Polish literature after two turning points (1989 and 2000). Representatives of the
younger generations want to find out more about the former lives of their relatives, searching for
traces and lost places. Another important issue is the massacre of Polish Jews in 1941 in Jedwabne as
well as the literary anticipation of the Holocaust. Joseph Conrad’s writing deeply affected Arendt’s
analysis of imperialism as an element of totalitarianism and the banality of evil. Interesting items
of writing about the Holocaust are books written for children. Next to concentration camps and the
former Jewish shtetl, also ghettos became a popular place in contemporary Polish Holocaust literature.
The power of words, in all likelihood holograms, will become the only way of hearing a testimony
in the future, making sure that the Holocaust is not forgotten. |
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| ISSN: | 1214-7915 2336-6680 |