Reading the Holocaust / Inga Clendinnen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clendinnen, Inga.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Historiography.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Historiography.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives--History and criticism.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) in literature.

Judaism and literature.

Genre:

Erlebnisbericht.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Personal narratives.

Physical Description:

ix, 227 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Summary:

The events of the Holocaust remain 'unthinkable' to many men and women, as morally and intellectually baffling as they were half a century ago. Inga Clendinnen challenges our bewilderment.

She seeks to dispel what she calls the Gorgon effect: the sickening of the imagination and the draining of the will that afflict so many of us when we try to confront the horrors of this history.

Clendinnen explores the experience of the Holocaust from both the victims' and the perpetrators' point of view.

She discusses the remarkable survivor testimonies of writers such as Primo Levi and Charlotte Delbo, the vexed issue of 'resistance' in the camps, and strategies for understanding the motivations of the Nazi leadership. She focuses an.

Anthropologist's precise gaze on the actions of the murderers in the police battalions and among the SS in the camps.

And she considers how the Holocaust has been portrayed in poetry, fiction, and film.

Contents:

Beginning

Impediments

Part I. Victims: Witnessing

Resisting

Part II. Perpetrators: Defining: inside the grey zone: the Auschwitz Sonderkommando

Leaders

The men in the green tunics: the order police in Poland

The Auschwitz SS

Representing the Holocaust.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-223) and index.

National Jewish Book Awards - Holocaust, Winner, 1999

ISBN:

0521641748

9780521641746

0521645972

9780521645973

9780521012690

0521012694

OCLC:

40510489

Online:

Publisher description