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Holocaust in Literature

Assignment: Write two reviews. Your reviews need to include the following. The audience of your review is teachers, parents, youth, and children.
 * A brief description of the text
 * Appropriate grade level and an explanation as to why
 * How does the text deal with the Holocaust?
 * How does the book represent the Holocaust?
 * What would students learn about the Holocaust from your text?
 * Does the text appropriately represent the Holocaust?

Keep in mind the issues of writing literature about such a tragic and important period of history. Every authour who writes about the Holocaust must struggle with these issues. By no means am I saying that Holocaust literature shouldn't be written. I am saying that it is so immensely important that it must be done with the utmost consideration and professionalism.
 * “Writing poetry after the Holocaust is barbaric” - Theodor Adorno
 * Literature is entertaining. Holocaust literature would be entertaining. Ergo, literature about the Holocaust is inappropriate
 * Literature is beautiful. Holocaust literature would be beautiful. Aesthetics/beauty was a Nazi ideal. Ergo, beautiful literature about the Holocaust would be inappropriate.
 * We can not remotely experience the Holocaust.
 * While reading, the audience "experiences" what the characters experience. The audience, after reading a book about spies, feel as if they have "experienced" what it's like to be a spy. Because of the horrific nature of the Holocaust, the reader cannot "experience" the Holocaust. Therefore, any "experience" that the reader derives from Holocaust literature is a shallow and inappropriate.
 * Any literature, including "non-fiction", is a representation of reality. Literature about the Holocaust is a representation of a very real event. Considering that a representation of something is never the thing in which it represents. Is it appropriate to represent the Holocaust?
 * The Holocaust is a horrific event in history. The truth of the Holocaust disturbs and confuses mature adults. How do we represent the Holocaust to children? Should we? Are ommissions appropriate?
 * Insistence on only true accounts of the Holocaust is unjust. If there is an insistence the imagined experiences are not worthy, the Holocaust would only be accesible through the tales of the few survivors, leaving the dead unspoken for.
 * Imagined literature possesses the amazing power to tell the story of those who are unable to tell their own.

Here's some texts which could get you thinking about the representation of the Holocaust. media type="youtube" key="vxU7YF-HCWc" height="204" width="253"