Metaphorizing the Holocaust: The Ethics of Comparison

Author(s): Mark Webber / Language(s): English Issue: 15-16/2011

This paper focuses on the ethics of metaphor and other forms of comparison that invoke National Socialism and the Holocaust. It seeks to answer the question: Are there criteria on the basis of which we can judge whether metaphors and associated tropes “use” the Holocaust appropriately? In analyzing the thrust and workings of such comparisons, the paper also seeks to identify and clarify the terminology and concepts that allow productive discussion. In line with its conception of metaphor that is also rhetorical praxis, the paper focuses on specific controversies involving the metaphorization of the Holocaust, primarily in Germany and Austria. The paper develops its argument through the following process. First, it examines the rhetorical/political contexts in which claims of the Holocaust’s comparability (or incomparability) have been raised. Second, it presents a review (and view) of the nature of metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. It applies this framework to (a) comparisons of Saddam Hussein with Hitler in Germany in 1991; (b) the controversies surrounding the 2004 poster exhibition “The Holocaust on Your Plate” in Germany and Austria, with particular emphasis on the arguments and decisions in cases before the courts in those countries; and (c) the invocation of “Auschwitz” as metonym and synecdoche. These examples provide the basis for a discussion of the ethics of comparison. In its third and final section the paper argues that metaphor is by nature duplicitous, but that ethical practice involving Holocaust comparisons is possible if one is self-aware and sensitive to the necessity of seeing the “other” as oneself. The ethical framework proposed by the paper provides the basis for evaluating the specific cases adduced.

The challenges of Holocaust instruction and remembrance - Particular and universal aspects in formal and informal interdisciplinary curricula in Israel and abroad

Author(s): Nitza Davidovich,Dan Soen,Anat Hezkelovich / Language(s): English Issue: 15-16/2011

The present article examines Holocaust instruction in Israel and in France, addressing formal and informal aspects of teaching practices. Specifically, the article examines whether Holocaust instruction constitutes a unifying factor that stresses what is common to human beings, among adolescents at schools in Israel and abroad, or whether it is a continuation of the methodic axis of the general model of the school and its credo. The study was conducted as part of a large-scale project evaluating 20 years of journeys to Poland by Israeli youth. It is based on a qualitative research apporoach that included analysis of interviews with policymakers, representatives of Holocaust institutes and foundations, teachers, students and guides. It also made use of field observations and official documents. The qualitative analysis revealed that that the dominant didactic models in Israel and France differ from one another in the importance that they attribute to universal versus the particular elements. Each of the models was built based on a didactic foundation of educational and teaching activity at the school in general, and Holocaust instruction in particular. The study findings indicate that in general, the Holocaust instruction in Israel continues to emphasize the particular. It serves as a tool for strengthening the unique values of the event, and stresses Israeliness, Zionism, and Jewishness. The climax of the modal is an eight-day journey to Poland, centering on a visit to Auschwitz. In contrast, Holocaust instruction in France emphasizes the universal. The curriculum positions the journey as the climax of the scholastic experience but, unlike the Israeli curriculum, it emphasizes the historical and universal aspects of the Holocaust and represses the singularity of the event in the context of the Jewish people. A comparison of the two countries underlines the substantive differences separating the two different educational systems, which have adopted different sets of values.

Ženi Lebl i počeci istraživanja jevrejske umetnosti u Srbiji

Author(s): Milica Rožman / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 5/2017

The beginnings of the research of Jewish art in Serbia are inextricably linked with the name Ženi Lebl. She researched the history of Jewish people in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in Serbia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. As a result of years of research in archives and libraries the following monographs dedicated to Jewish people in Serbia were created: To„the final solution” Jewish people in Belgrade 1521-1942, To „the final solution” Jewish people in Serbia and Jewish people in Pirot. The first part of the two-volume work To “the final solution”, is dedicated to the Jewish people in Belgrade. In this monograph Ž. Lebl covered the period from 1521 to 1942, thus giving one of the most complete overview of the history of Jewish people in Belgrade, from their immigration to their suffering in the Holocaust. In addition to the historical context that is unavoidable in the research of Jewish visual culture in Serbia, she covered other contexts, such as religious, cultural, political and funeral, and which are very important for the study of Jewish art in a view of visual culture. The second part of the two-volume work To“the final solution” is dedicated to the Jewish people in Serbia, where Serbia after the Balkan wars is covered. This book along with the previous one of the Jewish people in Belgrade represents an entire unit, and all the major cities in Serbia where the Jewish community lived are covered in it. Finally, Pirot, like Belgrade, was the subject of the specific research which Ženi Lebl covered in the monograph dedicated to Jewish people in Pirot. Based on the published archival materials and visual material on Jewish mahala, synagogue, mikvah and a cemetery, valuable data for the research of Jewish art in Pirot are provided. Considering the monographs that were created as a result of many years of research in archives and libraries, we can conclude that they represent one of the most complete edition of the history and fate of the Jewish people, based on the contemporary methodological research, that are based on a multidisciplinary method and contribute to studies of visual culture. Although Ženi Lebl primarily covered the history of Jewish people in these monographs, she also covered other phenomena and contexts, such as religious, cultural and funeral, which are very important for the study and understanding of Jewish art in Serbia in a view of visual culture.

Концентрациони логор Јасеновац и кршење међународног права

Author(s): Jelena Đ. Lopičić Jančić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2017

This article discuses the international legal aspect of Jasenovac concentration camp. Jasenovac was the largest concentration camp in occupied Yugoslavia during Second World War and has functioned since its establishment in August 1941 until its closure in April 1945. This camp was also known as death camp because most of the inmates died due to murdering them or from various diseases and illness since the conditions in the concentration camp were terrible. The number of killed inmates in Jasenovac concentration camp, that consisted of Serbs, Jews, Romani, anti-fascists and other persons who did not accept the Ustasha’s government, was never precisely determined. Estimates differ depending upon the authors but total number of inmates that died in Jasenovac concentration camp was not less than 600,000. We believe that Jasenovac concentration camp is not enough treated in our literature from international legal aspect so that is one of the reasons, beside the above mentioned that we wrote this article. The primary responsibility for the existence of concentration camps in Croatia have Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that have committed aggression against Kingdom of Yugoslavia and occupation of Kingdom Yugoslavia, and formed in the occupied territory quisling state of so-called Independent State of Croatia. By these acts they severely violated number of international conventions on the laws of war. Independent State of Croatia issued a series of racist and Nazi laws and decrees on the basis of which the physical liquidation of Serbs, Jews, Romani, antifascists and those who did not accept the Ustasha government was executed. In this article were applied historical legal method, comparative legal method and positive legal method. Since there is an obvious attempt of the defeated Nazi and Fascist parties on the revision of the Second World War, including the minimization of status and victims of Jasenovac, the aim of this article is besides other issues to oppose such a position from international legal aspects.This is important and significant for the younger generation who are not familiar with this issue, so this is an opportunity to learn about this issue from international legal aspect.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Wallenberg Family Sues for Access to KGB Files

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 08/01/2017

The truth about the disappearance and death of the heroic Swedish diplomat is shrouded in bureaucratic fog.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Moldovan Students Set to Learn More About the Holocaust

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 08/15/2017

Critics say that teaching on the subject has been far too little, partly because of the sensitivity of discussing the atrocities committed by the Romanian fascist state.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Warsaw Eyes Demand for German Reparations

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 08/15/2017

‘We are talking here about huge sums,’ ruling party boss warns.

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński i Żydzi (rekonesans)

Author(s): Danuta Szajnert / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2015

The article concerns “Jewish” topics in the writings of G. Herling-Grudziński. It contains a record of almost all his remarks on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and Judaism (always introduced in connection with Christianity) in dealing with this subject essays and diary records. It shows refl ections in what form the issues came to the stories and short novels author of A World Apart: A Memoir of the Gulag. The collected material provides no basis for predication that sensitivity to the Jewish question indirectly reveals relationships with this part of the writer’s biography, which is associated with his concealed Jewish origins.

Janka Hescheles’ 'Locomotive' (to Bełżec)

Author(s): Arkadiusz Morawiec / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2016

This article concerns the influence of the most famous Polish poem for children: Lokomotywa by Julian Tuwim, particularly in three “Holocaust” paraphrases of this work, written by children in the ghetto and the concentration camps – the poems Lokomotywa by Jerzy Ogórek, Pociągu świst by Jerzy Orłowski, and especially Bełżec by Janka Hescheles.

Atitudinea autorităţilor române în anii ’70 faţă de victimele Holocaustului în contextul despăgubirilor germane

Author(s): Petre Matei / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 55/2016

Although the Holocaust was neglected and minimized in communist Romania, starting with 1967 (restoration of diplomatic relations between Romania and West-Germany) the Romanian authorities made efforts to obtain compensations from West-Germany for the victims of Nazi persecutions. However, this meant no real change in the way Romania dealt with its own recent past (the anti-Semitic and anti-Roma measures during WWII taken by the Romanian authorities), which tended to be ignored. It was considered more profitable for Romania to externalize its own guilt by blaming exclusively West Germany, from which they hoped to obtain hard currency. The Romanian secret services played an important role in organizing this process. According to the way the Romanian authorities acted, the process had two phases: 1) 1967-1970 - unofficial phase (through intermediaries); 2) since March 1970 –official phase (the Romanian government decided to negotiate directly with the West-German authorities). Within a year, on March 2, 1971, more than 155.000 compensation claims were submitted (mostly for Jewish and Roma victims). In May 1971, fearing a domino effect, the German government decided to refuse any compensation payments to Romania and other communist states.

Co powiedziałby Goethe, czyli o kulturze w Buchenwaldzie

Author(s): Sonia Ruszkowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

Review: Magdalena Sacha, ‘Gdyście w obóz przybyć już raczyli…’. Obraz kultury lagrowej w świadectwach więźniów Buchenwaldu 1937-1945 [‘When You Deign Come to the Camp…’: The Image of Camp Culture in the Testimonies of Buchenwald Prisoners 1937-1945]; Bydgoszcz/Gdańsk: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2014.

Obraz fotograficzny – między archiwum a pozorem. Fotografie w „nożyku profesora” Tadeusza Różewicza

Author(s): Hanna Marciniak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 21/2014

This article explores the issue of postmemory and secondary witnessing as dealt with in Tadeusz Różewicz’s 2002 poem The Professor’s Little Knife. The paper presents two photographs which refer to the problem of the Holocaust’s representation and its limits. The first picture comes from the collection of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; however, the author concealed its origins and changed its appearance so that it resembled a retro nude photograph. The second one is a raw, non-stylized picture of a knife that belonged to Professor Porębski during imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. By using various interpretation methods, such as the deconstruction of an image or empathic reading, the author of this article examines the limits and consequences of treating a photograph as “spectral evidence”.

Auschwitz i nowoczesność

Author(s): Bartłomiej Krupa / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2012

The text examines the relationship between the two categories – Auschwitz and modernity, in recognition of Jean Améry and Zygmunt Bauman, taking also into account the voice of the latter polemicists. In the first place is reconstructed Améry’s positive view on modernity with respect for the truth of the victims of Auschwitz. Then Bauman's critical position is discussed, indicating the modern provenance of the Holocaust and risk of recurrence of the Holocaust. Next the voices of Bauman’s opponents are presented. Yehuda Bauer, Henryk Grynberg, Andrzej Szahaj and Stefan Morawski pointed to the key role of ideology and irrational aspects of Nazism. At the end the common ground of Améry and Bauman is indicated – both turn to take the perspective of the victims.

Ciało i gender w obozach zagłady

Author(s): Bożena Karwowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2009

The article Body and Gender in Nazi Concentration Camps is an attempt to discuss difficult issues of human sexuality and sexually marked behaviors in the context of the concentration camps, and their descriptions in the memoirs of the survivors. Using notions and concepts of the so called "black American feminism" the author (referring extensively to books by Stanisław Grzesiuk and Zofia Romanowiczowa) shows how in the concentration camp the human body became the only space of a relative privacy of the prisoner. At the same time the body becomes a territory on which all - both biological and socially constructed - human fates cross.

Parisian Space and Memory in Patrick Modiano’s Fiction

Author(s): Elena-Brândușa Steiciuc / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2015

Patrick Modiano, the recent Nobel winner, depicts in his writings - more than any other French contemporary novelist – the space of France seen as a “terre d’accueil” for many persons, especially Jews who had to leave their homelands during the Second World War. The very heart of France, Paris is not only the “ville-lumière” much praised by artists of all times and cultures, but also a space where memory is present at any street corner, especially the sad and painful remembrance of anti-Semitism. This is why our paper will deal with some of the most outstanding aspects concerning France during the 20th century, which are related in Modiano’s writings (Ronde de nuit, Livret de famille, Une jeunesse) with memory, especially the Holocaust and the Vichy collaboration experience.

Casting a shadow backwards and forwards: the para-Holocaust fiction of Charles Rezniko", Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud

Author(s): Jacek Partyka / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2017

The article reconsiders critical reception of three historical novels by Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Charles Rezniko , so as to take issue with Alvin H. Rosenfeld’s assertion that “all novels about Jewish suffering written in the post-Holocaust period must implicate the Holocaust, whether it is expressly named or not” as it “casts its shadow backwards as well as forwards” (A Double Dying, 1980: 68). Interestingly, Rosenfeld, while pointing to Singer’s and Malamud’s alleged inability to face the subject matter of the Holocaust directly, does not even attempt to speculate on possible explanations for their alleged artistic impuissance (if it can be called impuissance at all). What is more, in his deliberations he disregards Rezniko ’s prose completely, and that is why the present paper briefy analyzes the Lionhearted, a tale referring to the persecution of the Jews of York in England in the 12th century, to establish whether it is justifed to regard it as a double discourse, and, arguably, a preliminary for “direct” writing about the Holocaust. All the analyses draw on two major heuristic models of evaluating cultural responses to the Holocaust – the exceptionalist and the constructivist – as put forward and theorized by Alan Mintz.The article reconsiders critical reception of three historical novels by Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Charles Rezniko , so as to take issue with Alvin H. Rosenfeld’s assertion that “all novels about Jewish suffering written in the post-Holocaust period must implicate the Holocaust, whether it is expressly named or not” as it “casts its shadow backwards as well as forwards” (A Double Dying, 1980: 68). Interestingly, Rosenfeld, while pointing to Singer’s and Malamud’s alleged inability to face the subject matter of the Holocaust directly, does not even attempt to speculate on possible explanations for their alleged artistic impuissance (if it can be called impuissance at all). What is more, in his deliberations he disregards Rezniko ’s prose completely, and that is why the present paper briefly analyzes the Lionhearted, a tale referring to the persecution of the Jews of York in England in the 12th century, to establish whether it is justified to regard it as a double discourse, and, arguably, a preliminary for “direct” writing about the Holocaust. All the analyses draw on two major heuristic models of evaluating cultural responses to the Holocaust – the exceptionalist and the constructivist – as put forward and theorized by Alan Mintz.

Aftereffects - The representation of the Holocaust, its universal moral implication and the trans generational transformation of the trauma based on the Israeli documentary film OY MAMA

Author(s): Liat Steir-Livny / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2017

The Holocaust has found ample expression in Israeli documentary cinema throughout the years. The case study of the paper is the documentary film Oy Mama (Noa Maiman; Orna Ben-Dor Niv, 2010). In the documentary, third generation Holocaust survivor Maiman explores the way the trauma of her 95-year-old grandmother, Fira, influenced the second and third generation, and the way it combines in the life of Fira’s Peruvian caregiver, Magna, and Magna’s 5-year-old daughter, Firita, who are about to be deported from Israel. The paper will analyze the complex combination it generates between generations, past and present, Jewish-Israelis and research, which questions the trans generational transformation of the trauma, the paper will show how Maiman claims that the Holocaust shaped the identity of the second and third generation in her family. The paper will also show how through the combination of Fira’s, Magma’s and Firita’s stories, Noa asks, not only to commemorate a familial Holocaust story, but also to enable the viewers to interpret the present through the past, hoping it will help the plea of the foreign worker.

Performing the Holocaust on social networks - Digitality, transcultural memory and new forms of narrating

Author(s): Eva Pfanzelter / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2017

The Internet and more particularly social networks shape discourses about Holocaust history and memory crucially: the presentation, representation and the discussions on Internet-websites is a paramount example for trans cultural mediation processes between history and memory, between commemoration, technology and culture, between institutionalized and public history. The paper will analyze these phenomena using examples from German and English content on the Internet. These examples address the apparent trans cultural frictions and indicate that the Internet has an influence on the discourse not only as a medium of acceleration but also as a central medium of public history and politicization. As such, it will mediate, shape, “like”, share, and carry the memory of the Holocaust forward in the future. Still, these performances follow unwritten laws of aesthetics and authorship that have so far characterized the discourses of memory even if they stretch the limits of what has been seen as appropriate by institutionalized memory.

When Night Passes and When Day Breaks – Between the Past and the Present. Borderlines of Holocaust in Filip David’s Works

Author(s): Sabina Giergiel,Katarzyna Taczyńska / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2017

The primary objective of the text is the analysis of Filip David's latest work. The Serbian writer is the author of the novel House of Memories and Oblivions (Kuća sećanja i zaborava, 2014), award for Best Novel of the Year by the NIN weekly (Nedeljne Informativne Novine). On the one hand, the output of this Serbian novelist is of interest to us as a continuation and representation of the contemporary discourse on the Holocaust in Serbia. On the other – we look at the literary realization of the Holocaust topic. The fortunes of the main characters in the novel (children who survived Holocaust) serve as the cases on which we present where the author draws the borderline of the ever-present Holocaust in their lives; how much and in what way the past affects their present; where the borderline of memory, forgetting and oblivion is.

Sorsdöntő évek – kettős átélésben

Author(s): András A. Gergely / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 05/2017