Language:
English
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
European Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
42,1 (2009) 31-50
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Children's stories History and criticism
;
Jewish illumination of books and manuscripts
;
Jewish publishing
Abstract:
Examines the aesthetic and narrative form and mediality of picture books for children dealing with the Holocaust. Compares the iconographic, narrative, and commemorative strategies used by the authors of several such books published in and intended for readers in Germany, other European countries, and the USA. Books written in Germany (e.g. "Judith und Lisa" by Elisabeth Reuter) generally focus on events in the Third Reich and tend to show them from the perpetrators' perspective and to erase differences between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans in the Nazi period. The French book "La grande peur sous les étoiles", by Jo Hoestlandt and Johanna Kang, shows the ambiguous situation of French bystanders facing the genocide. In contrast, American picture books on the Holocaust are intended mainly for Jewish readers, often focus on intergenerational continuity of history within a postwar family, and try to support and affirm a new American Jewish existence.
DOI:
10.3167/ej.2009.420105
URL:
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