Language:
English
Year of publication:
1988
Titel der Quelle:
Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual
Angaben zur Quelle:
5 (1988) 77-96
Keywords:
Hilsenrath, Edgar
;
Becker, Jurek,
;
Seelich, Nadja
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
German literature History and criticism
Abstract:
Surveys the works of two novelists and a filmmaker whose lives and art were affected by the Holocaust. Edgar Hilsenrath (b. Leipzig, 1926) has two novels: "Nacht" details the misery, brutality, and corruption amongst Jews in the ghetto; "Der Nazi und der Friseur" is a satire depicting the parallel biographies of a Christian and a Jew, and attacks anti-Jewish fiction and racist theory as well as contemporary German literature. The novels of Jurek Becker (b. Łódź, 1937) are set in the ghetto or depict survivors trying to establish a new existence. Criticizing images of mass murder in Holocaust literature, he maintains that it should be written for the uninitiated audience which can best be reached through descriptions of personal struggle. Nadja Seelich (b. Prague, 1947, living in Vienna) is the only one who identifies as a Jew. Her film "Kielsteine" ("Pebbles") shows how the Holocaust is integrated into the lives of Jews who did not experience it personally. Her Jewish protagonist, living in Vienna, is part of the mainstream, but antisemitic attitudes of gentile friends force her to remain silent about her Jewishness and her reactions to the Holocaust.
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