Idea Transcript
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
These resources address the topic of secondary witnessing of the Holocaust and provide context for the exhibition 12 Nazi Concentration Camps: Photographs by James Friedman. Amishai-Maisels, Ziva, Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (1993 Pergamon Press) Batya Brutin, writing for the Jewish Women's Archive, notes: "The importance of AmishaiMaisels’s book lies in its wide scope and in the originality of its conclusions, which demonstrate the impact of the Holocaust on modern art in general. The pioneering nature of her work brought the topic to the attention of academics both in Israel and abroad and established a new area of research. A groundbreaking work, it is today the basis for all research on Holocaust art." Apel, Dora, Memory of Effects: The Holocaust and the Art of Secondary Witnessing (Rutgers University Press 2002) Dora Apel analyzes the ways in which artists born after the Holocaust, whom she calls secondary witnesses, represent a history they did not experience firsthand. She demonstrates that contemporary artists confront these atrocities in order to bear witness not to the Holocaust directly, but to its “memory effects” and to the implications of those effects for the present and future. Erich Hartmann, In the Camps (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1995) Hartmann and his parents, his brother, and his sister fled Germany in 1938, immigrating to the U.S. Hartmann, was 16 at the time. In this book, Hartmann presents 74 stark black-and-white photographs that he took, along with text, depicting 31 Nazi concentration camps as of 1995. Hirsch, Marianne, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory (Harvard University Press, 1997) Family photographs help to preserve history and memories. For most of us, photographs are the way we represent ourselves to future generations. In Family Frames Marianne Hirsch unveils how this concept is both false and powerful. Contemporary artists and writers, Hirsch shows, have exposed the gap between lived reality and a perceived ideal. Family photos are a powerful means for shaping personal and cultural memory. Hirsch highlights a wide variety of family pictures related to surviving the Holocaust. Whether personal treasures, artistic constructions, or museum installations, these images link private memory to collective history.
La Capra, Dominick, Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory Trauma (Cornell University Press, 1994) The author examines the intersections between historical events and the theory through which we struggle to understand them. In a series of essays LaCapra explores the problems faced by historians, critics, and thinkers who attempt to grasp the Holocaust. He considers the “canon formation” and revision of historical record which reflects contemporary discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation. LaCapra also focuses on the importance of psychoanalysis and how its concepts have sociocultural dimensions and can help us understand the relationship between the present and the past. Liss, Andrea, Trespassing through Shadows Memory, Photography, and the Holocaust (University of Minnesota Press, 1998) In Trespassing through Shadows, Andrea Liss examines the use of photography to bear witness to the Holocaust. Focusing on a wide range of photographic displays and museum installations as well as such films as Shoah and Schindler's List, Liss questions the role of photography as social practice. She analyzes the changes that documentary and individual photographs undergo as they are utilized in contemporary exhibits. Liss is especially interested in examining the connections between historical accuracy and the need for respectful remembrance of those who suffered and died during the Holocaust. Rothberg, Michael, Traumatic Realism the Demands of Holocaust Representation (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) This book studies how a traumatic event, the Holocaust, influences contemporary culture. Rothberg analyzes films by Spielberg and Lanzmann. He also examines the works of Theodor Adorno, Maurice Blanchot, Ruth Klüger, Charlotte Delbo, Art Spiegelman, and Philip Roth. Rothberg’s exploration leads to the conclusion that the Holocaust as a traumatic event makes three fundamental demands on representation: “a demand for documentation, a demand for reflection on the limits of representation, and a demand for engagement with the public sphere and commodity culture.” Shandler, Jeffrey, While America Watches (New York: Oxford University Press,1999) The Holocaust holds a unique place in American public culture, and Jeffrey Shandler takes the position in While America Watches “that it is television, more than any other medium, that has brought the Holocaust into our homes, our hearts, and our minds.” Shandler explains how television has familiarized Americans with the Holocaust. He starts with wartime newsreels of liberated concentration camps, and continues with the Eichmann trial and the miniseries The Holocaust. He also examines documentaries and popular series such as All in the Family and Star Trek. Simon, Roger I. (Editor), Between Hope and Despair: Pedagogy and the Remembrance of Historical Trauma (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) The book Between Hope and Despair examines the academic problem of how we should remember when what is to be remembered is underscored by acts that defy logic and all humane characteristics. This pedagogical attention to practices of remembrance reflects the growing awareness that hope for a just and compassionate future lies in the working through of these issues.
Van Alphen, Ernst, Caught by History: Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art, Literature, and Theory (Stanford University Press, 1998) The author discusses why the reenactment of the Holocaust through art and literature can help to analyze this event. He explores the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and the works of various artists and writers including Charlotte Salomon, Christian Boltanski, and Armando. Van Alphen’s theory is that reenactment, in an artistic form, is a primary means to understanding the Holocaust. Young, James E., At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.) At Memory's Edge is a collection of essays with topics ranging from Art Spiegelman's Maus books to the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. In this book, Young wonders how artists who did not live through the Holocaust can represent an event they did not know directly. He goes on to question "the task of contemplating how to understand a formative historical tragedy of which first-hand memory is rapidly fading. Zelizer, Barbie (Editor), Visual Culture and the Holocaust (Editor) (Rutgers University Press 2001) In this book, Barbie Zelizer has gathered essays from world renowned scholars who discuss the various ways the Holocaust has been depicted. A wide range of formats are represented including, film, painting, photography, museums and the Internet. Zelizer, Barbie, Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory through the Camera's Eye (University of Chicago Press, 1998) "[A] fascinating study. . . . Here we have a completely fresh look at the emergence of photography as a major component of journalistic reporting in the course of the liberation of the camps by the Western Allies. . . . Well written and argued, superbly produced with more photographs of atrocity than most people would want to see in a lifetime, this is clearly an important book."—Omer Bartov, Times Literary Supplement
The following resources are suggested to enhance one’s study of the Holocaust through diaries and memoirs.
Boas, Jacob. We are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers who Died in the Holocaust (Henry Holt & Co., 1995). This collection describes the experiences of five teenagers who lived in different parts of Europe and had different lives; yet all were Jewish and one of the approximately six million Jews that perished during the Holocaust. (Nonfiction) Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. (Harper Perennial, 1998). After discovering transcripts of the testimony of one police battalion, Browning explores how a German police battalion composed of “ordinary men” could have carried out the murder of thousands during WWII. Delbo, Charlotte. Auschwitz and After. (Yale University Press, 1995). Delbo and her husband, both not Jewish, were arrested as members of the French resistance movement. Her husband was executed in prison, but Delbo was transported to Auschwitz and then Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was liberated. The book is written in poetry and prose. (Nonfiction) Klein, Gerda Weissman. All but my Life. (Hill and Wang, 1957, 1995). Gerda’s memoir tells the story when her Polish town was occupied by the Nazis. During the war, Gerda was separated from her family, but through the many different concentration camps, she created a new family of other girls who were alone. Gerda attributes much of her survival to her camp sisters. When she was liberated after a death march, Gerda met her husband, Kurt, an American soldier. Kluger, Ruth. Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2001). An incredible memoir about Ruth’s life during the Anschluss (annexation of Austria) and her internment in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Christianstadt, all with her mother. Both survived, but found their journey continued to be difficult when they returned to occupied Germany and then New York City. Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. (Touchstone, 1947). In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-fiveyear-old chemist and "Italian citizen of Jewish race," was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. This memoir describes the ten months of his internment at Auschwitz. (Nonfiction) Matas, Carol. Daniel’s Story. (Scholastic Paperbacks, 1993). This book is a conglomeration told through the character of “Daniel.” The book describes the rise of Nazism in Germany and Daniel’s move to the Lodz ghetto and then to Auschwitz. (Fiction) Spiegelman, Art. Maus. (Pantheon, 1986). Maus is the story of Vladek Spiegeman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with this father, his father’s terrifying story, and history itself. The memoir is written as a graphic novel. Part I of Maus takes Spiegelman’s parents to the gates of Auschwitz and the author, Art Spiegelman to a quest to come to terms with the horrific past of his parents. Spiegelman, Art. Maus II. (Pantheon, 1991). The second part of Maus begins at Auschwitz and describes Vladek’s survival, but also the author’s attempt to learn and appreciate his father’s story and experience. Wiesel, Elie. Night. (Hill and Wang, 2008). This memoir tells the story of Elie Wiesel who survived Auschwitz and the death march to Buchenwald where he was liberated. (Nonfiction)
Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. (Schocken, 1997). While imprisoned in a concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was asked by a nurse to accompany her to the bedside of a dying SS soldier. The soldier confesses the atrocities he committed and asks Wiesenthal, on behalf of the Jews of Europe, to forgive him of his crimes. Wiesenthal walks away and years after the war, wonders whether he made the right decision. The text is divided into two parts:1) Wiesenthal’s memoir; and 2) The Symposium. The “Symposium” is a collection of essays from different activists, individuals, authors, and survivors of genocide, and religious figures who address the question, “What would I have done?” (Nonfiction) Zapruder, Alexandra. Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust. (Yale University Press, 2002). This a unique collection of diaries written by young people, ages twelve to twenty-two. They came from different backgrounds and different families and each had a different experience during the Holocaust that is shared through their writings. (Nonfiction)
Analysis on the Selfie Phenomenon at Holocaust Sites www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/should-auschwitz-be-a-site-for-selfies www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/09/holocaust-selfies-solemn-sites-touristtrap www.huffingtonpost.com/.../auschwitz-selfie-girl-breanna-mitche... www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/07/22/the-other-side-of-theinfamous-auschwitz-selfie/ http://forward.com/culture/311188/will-selfies-make-you-free-debating-the-appropriateness-ofnarcissistic-pho/