During and in the aftermath of the dark period of the Holocaust, writers across Europe and America sought to express their feelings and experiences through their writings. This book provides a comprehensive account of these writings through essays from expert scholars, covering a wide geographic, linguistic, thematic and generic range of materials. Such an overview is particularly appropriate at a time when the corpus of Holocaust literature has grown to immense proportions and when guidance is needed in determining a canon of essential readings, a context to interpret them, and a paradigm for the evolution of writing on the Holocaust. The expert contributors to this volume, who negotiate the literature in the original languages, provide insight into the influence of national traditions and the importance of language, especially but not exclusively Yiddish and Hebrew, to the literary response arising from the Holocaust.
Introduction Alan Rosen; Part I. Wartime Victim Writing: 1. Wartime victim writing in Eastern Europe David G. Roskies; 2. Wartime victim writing in Western Europe David Patterson; Part II. Postwar Responses: 3. The Holocaust and Italian literature Robert S. C. Gordon; 4. German literature and the Holocaust Stuart Taberner; 5. Hebrew literature of the Holocaust Sheila E. Jelen; 6. The Holocaust and postwar Yiddish literature Jan Schwarz; 7. The Holocaust in Russian literature Leona Toker; 8. The Holocaust in English language literatures S. Lillian Kremer; 9. Polish literature on the Holocaust Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska; 10. Hungarian Holocaust literature Rita Horváth; 11. French literature and the Holocaust Jeffrey Mehlman; Part III. Other Approaches: 12. Oral memoir and the Shoah Alessandro Portelli; 13. Songs of the Holocaust Shirli Gilbert; 14. Sephardic literary responses to the Holocaust Judith Roumani; 15. Anthologizing the Holocaust Alan Rosen; 16. The Historian's Anvil, the Novelist's Crucible Eric J. Sundquist.
