Introduction: The aim of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of the Shoah from most angles and sides to avoid simplification and generalization. The result is the creation of activities for pupils outlining the Holocaust, the Shoah. I want to combine eyewitness testimony uměleckoliterárním rendition of the theme of the Shoah. For greater expertise as a starting point of my work I choose: I. general characteristics of totalitarianism or the system that gave rise to the Shoah, II. insight into historical context, as my activity is usable in more subjects: literature, civics and history is necessary for me this season prepared and factually. III. The art of literature related to the topic of the Shoah affected by the "wine", I will try to demonstrate the immanence of the destruction of human society, which is also what should be heard even at the end of my activities. IV. The final activity will be articulated eyewitness testimony and artistic text (which process the same historical events) will be outlined their educational use in the subjects: civics, history and literature. Target activity will be interdisciplinary, as it is mainly designed for the needs of secondary schools, for the interconnection of multiple information sources and their mutual confrontation, which leads to less distortion of...

No description available.

Cette thèse de littérature comparée a pour objectif de mettre en rapport des œuvres habitées par l’Histoire, et d’interroger les représentations littéraires du corps face à l’épreuve extrême de l’enfermement. Le but de cette recherche, qui se déploie en trois temps, est de questionner la nature humaine à travers le prisme de l’écriture face à l’expérience bouleversante des camps de concentration et d’extermination nazis pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en mettant en parallèle des œuvres tant de témoignage que de fiction, qui puisent leurs ressources chacune dans le réel et le fictionnel, dans un jeu de vases communicants.Plus précisément, dans le cadre de la première partie, nous nous concentrons sur la manière dont l’expérience-limite de l’être se manifeste dans ces récits : la confusion identitaire et la déshumanisation y bousculent la représentation du corps, le mettent en doute. Ce doute s’inscrit dans le langage même : comment raconter ce qui paraît inimaginable ? Dans cette deuxième partie, nous mettons l’accent sur l’aspect indicible de l’évènement, et réfléchissons aux contournements, aux déplacements que peut offrir la littérature pour dire ce qui semble, au premier abord, inénarrable. Les images et symboles créent de nouvelles formes littéraires. Ces analyses nous permettent de développer enfin la thématique de ce que nous appelons l’écriture organique, qui se compose et s’articule autour de la corporéité. Langage et corps se superposent dans une dynamique architecturale. Écrire laisse une trace. L’écriture engendre. La littérature serait alors le terrain fécond d’une renaissance, de l’écriture d’un homme nouveau, à jamais métamorphosé par l’expérience concentrationnaire. / This thesis of comparative literature aims to relate pieces inhabited by history and to question literary representations of the body in the face of the extreme hardship of confinement. The aim of this research, which unfolds in three parts, is to question human nature through the prism of writing when confronted with the traumatic experience of concentration camps and Nazi exterminations in the Second World War, by paralleling pieces, factual and fictional, which draw their ressources from both reality and fiction like interconnecting vessels. More specifically, as part of the first section we concentrate on the way the limit-experience of being manifests itself in these accounts. The confusion of identity and the dehumanization disrupt the representation of the body, thus impeaching it.This doubt fits into the language itself : how does one tell the unimaginable ? In the second section we focus on the inexpressible aspect of the event and reflect on the diversions, the displacements that literature can offer to say what, at first, seems indescribable. Imagery and symbolism create new forms of literature.This analysis allows us to develop the theme that we call organic writing, which is composed of and articulates itself through corporeity. Language and body superpose themselves in an architectural dynamic. Writing leaves a trace. Writing gives rise to new forms. Literature would therefore be the fertile soil of revival, the writing of a new human being, forever metamorphosed by the concentration camp experience.

The Holocaust is a subject that seems to defy artistic representation by way of its sheer scale of tragedy and subsequent trauma. As I will demonstrate in this paper, it is hard to restore visibility – pictorial links between past and present realities – to crimes that have been deliberately submerged by its perpetrators. I will examine some of the common strategies used in representation of the victims of the Holocaust since the end of the Second World War, in the mediums of film and photography. As my main method of enquiry, I will examine three films from different eras, and of very different approaches in terms of their processing of the proposed original evidence, as examples to illustrate my arguments. In the second chapter Alain Resnais's documentary film Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) is analyzed as a birthplace of the so-called iconography of the Holocaust. Chapter three examines workings of memory through the aesthetic form that was soon to follow; the role and testimony of the survivors is considered through Claude Lanzmann's Shoah. In the fourth chapter a new player is introduced: the second generation witness of postmemory, works of transmitted but unexperienced realities. In this chapter I will closer examine the workings of art in the game of reprocessing the evidence of the Holocaust, and through Dariusz Jablonski's film Fotoamator I aim to critique how the previously discussed approaches serve to further lock the Holocaust in an inaccessible canon. Moreover, the generalization implied – a drive toward universalization of the Holocaust as an idiom or even a metaphor for the dark sides of human history/character – derives from problems of representation; mainly that of anonymity in face of the proposed beauty of the spectacle, of tragedy and suffering in mass-media. A key problem is that any historical document, however we define one, is considered transparent and unmediated, whereas art is clearly something where a degree of mediation is necessarily recognized. In the face of this dichotomy it seems that all the collected "proof" of the Holocaust – witness accounts" photographs" films" material remains – achieves, is to stregthen the prevailing version of history.

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

Cette thèse consacrée à Die Ausgewanderten de W.G. Sebald (1992) procède à une étude microscopique et détaillée de l'écriture dans sa singularité, une radiographie du texte et de sa matérialité hétérogène. L'étude montre la structure binaire sous-jacente de l'ouvrage, la complexité des stratégies stylistiques et narratives, la manière dont le signifiant se soumet à l'impératif catégorique du signifié mais aussi la prééminence de signes tangentiels et obliques ; elle s'intéresse également à la singularité de l'enchaînement des discours rapportés et met en lumière le geste mélancolique du narrateur sébaldien. Il apparaît que l'intertextualité revêt une spécificité particulière puisque la polyphonie sébaldienne est orientée différemment de celle envisagée par M. Bakhtine. La deuxième partie s'attache à étudier la critique de la civilisation (Kulturkritik) dans une œuvre fortement marquée par la constellation idéologique de l'École de Francfort et plus précisément par " La Dialectique de la Raison " de Horkheimer et d'Adorno. La prose allemande muséale de l'auteur, qui rappelle celle d'Adalbert Stifter mais aussi, par ses emboîtements narratifs, emprunte la virtuosité bernhardienne, est incrustée de " moments " de bonheur ou de beauté qui mettent en évidence et soulignent l'inouï du monde concentrationnaire. Les thématiques de l'exil et du pays natal sont au centre des intérêts de la troisième partie. L'étude s'attache à montrer que l'ouvrage réécrit en quelque sorte une littérature de l'exil que l'auteur, professeur de littérature de langue allemande, a eu l'occasion de fréquenter mais aussi d'analyser. C'est un " chœur d'exilés " qui se fait entendre dans Die Ausgewanderten et qui manifeste la tragédie de l'homme moderne.

Through the creation of a graphic novel based on a Romanian Holocaust survivor’s testimony, this study attempts to clarify the role of artistic creation in meaning-making during Holocaust and genocide education. In facilitating empathy and moral education, the creative process encourages a deeper exploration of these troubling topics than is possible within the confines of a traditional academic approach. In order to understand this process, I worked with the testimony of Zoly Zamir, who escaped Bucharest following the Iron Guard Rebellion of 1941. The creation of the graphic novel took me from Austin to Houston and Romania, where I sought to trace the echoes of history in architecture and environment. Translating Zamir’s story into word and image produced an empathetic bond to the narrative and the region, facilitating a deeper understanding of the hows and whys of the Holocaust. That engagement spurred a desire to continue to ask questions, to look beyond a regimented understanding and view the broader implications of the history. / text

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

Les élèves faisant le voyage dans la journée pour visiter le Musée-Mémorial d’Auschwitz-Birkenau font une expérience particulière à la fois de ce site et de l’événement dont il est la trace. Ils ne se contentent pas de recevoir passivement les informations qui leurs sont donnés, mais les réinvestissent dans leur propre champ d’expérience. Ils l’élaborent à partir des différents élément matériels et des différents informations qui leurs sont donnés sur le site. L’image de l’espace est le moyen par lequel quelque chose est communiqué et le résultat de cette communication. Le compte-rendu de la manière dont un groupe d’élève parle de sa visite quelques semaines plus tard permet d’observer la constitution de cet espace vécu et cette mémoire, lorsque ce qui a été éprouvé se met en mots malgré la difficulté du passage de la perception éprouvée à l’élaboration discursive qui se manifeste dans la plupart des situations d’interlocutions. Chaque moment de la visite est associé à des informations apprises sous forme de notions générales dont ils se rendent compte et de représentations mentales qu’ils imaginent, ainsi qu’à des ressentis. À travers cela, ils prennent conscience du caractère à la fois morbide et empathique de la nature humaine. Il s’agit d’une expérience touristique particulière. Se crée alors une certaine communauté entre ceux qui ont eu cette expérience et la volonté de la transmettre qui est à la fois une exigence civique et un besoin de mettre en mot un vécu intime pour le comprendre. Cependant, dans la mesure où cette transmission engage l’intimité d’un vécu et non des informations historiques, elle ne se fait qu’à des proches perçus comme étant intéressés / Pupils making the day trip to visit the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau have a particular experience both of this site and the event the event of which is the trace. They do not passively receive information given to them, but reinvest it in their own fields of experience. They do it from various material elements and informations which are given during the day into the site. The image of the place is both the way by which something is communicated and at the same time the result of this communication. The report of how a group of pupil speaks about its visit a few weeks later allows to observe the constitution of this living space and this memory. What was felt puts itself in word, despite the difficulty of the passage perception proven to the discursive development manifested in most interlocutions situations. Every moment of the visit is associated with learned information that are general concepts they realize and mental representations they imagine, and with feelings. Through this, they become aware of the human nature that is both morbid and empathetic. So this is a different experience of those are touristic entertainment. There is a community between those who had this experience and the will to transmit that is both a civic requirement and a need to put in word an intimate real-life experience to understand it. However, to the extent that this transmission engages the intimacy of a real-life experience and not af a historical information, it is made only to close people perceived as being interested

Cette étude propose d’explorer les œuvres de Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, et Art Spiegelman, à travers la notion de trace, principe fondateur de l’esthétique et de l’éthique des écritures de l’après-Shoah. L’expérience lacunaire de ces « générations d’après » implique la présence d’une « postmémoire », dont le caractère « différé » sollicite le travail de l’imagination et informe la démarche créatrice de ces artistes et écrivains de l’après, qui reconstruisent le passé de leurs familles. Ces récits de la hantise sont marqués par une « mémoire trouée », et découlent souvent d’une rupture de la filiation, donc d’une défaillance de la transmission. Engagés dans une quête de savoir, narrateurs et protagonistes interrogent l’événement à partir de traces matérielles, ainsi qu’au travers de retours, réels et imaginaires, sur les lieux de l’origine. Ces récits sont composés de matériaux hétérogènes qui créent des ruptures visuelles, et sont informés par divers dérèglements temporels : désordres, disruptions chronologiques, latence et répétition – tous symptomatiques de l’après-coup du trauma. Ces textes postmémoriels posent enfin la question de l’éthique de la représentation. Performativité de la langue, fictionnalisation de l’Histoire, et enjeux de la transmission sont au cœur de ces œuvres en devenir, et interrogent l’éthique de la responsabilité de leurs auteurs, entre passation et travail de deuil. / This study explores the works of Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Art Spiegelman through the notion of trace, the founding principle of the aesthetics and ethics of post-Holocaust writing. The incomplete knowledge of these “post-Holocaust generations” implies the presence of a “postmemory”, the “deferred” nature of which requires the imagination to be put to work and informs the creative approach of these post-Holocaust artists and writers, reconstructing their family’s past. These haunting narratives are marked by a “memory shot through with holes” and are often the result of a break in the bond of filiation, and therefore a hiatus of transmission. Having embarked on a quest for knowledge, narrators and protagonists examine the event through material traces, as well as real or imaginary returns to their places of origin. These narratives are made up of heterogeneous elements which create visual ruptures and are informed by various temporal disruptions: disorders, chronological breaks, latency and repetition – all symptomatic of the deferred action of trauma. Finally, these postmemorial texts raise the issue of the ethics of representation. The performativity of language, the fictionalization of History, and the issue of transmission are at the heart of these works in the making, and ethically question their authors’ responsibility, between transfer and the work of mourning.