The Holocaust - the systematic attempted destruction of European Jewry and other 'threats' to the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945 - has been portrayed in fiction, film, memoirs, and poetry. Gene Plunka's study will add to this chronicle with an examination of the theatre of the Holocaust. Including thorough critical analyses of more than thirty plays, this book explores the seminal twentieth-century Holocaust dramas from the United States, Europe, and Israel. Biographical information about the playwrights, production histories of the plays, and pertinent historical information are provided, placing the plays in their historical and cultural contexts.
1. Introduction; 2. Staging the banality of evil; 3. Culture and the Holocaust; 4. The Holocaust as literature of the body; 5. Transcending the Holocaust; 6. Marxism and the Holocaust; 7. Aryan responsibility during the Holocaust, I; 8. Aryan responsibility during the Holocaust, II; 9. Heroism and moral responsibility in the ghettoes; 10. Dignity in the concentration camps; 11. Holocaust survivors in the United States and Israel; 12. The survivor syndrome and the effects of the Holocaust on survivor families; 13. Holocaust survivor memory; 14. The Holocaust and collective memory; Bibliography.
