THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST
By Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Indiana University Press, 328 pages, $29.95
The impact of the Holocaust on contemporary culture has been enormous; less recognized has been the impact of contemporary culture on what we think of as “the Holocaust.” The main thrust of Alvin Rosenfeld’s “The End of the Holocaust” is to examine ways in which popular culture has influenced Holocaust awareness, shaping the content of historical memory and expanding its application to atrocities that had nothing to do with the murder of European Jewry. He balances his discussion of such deflective efforts with a sober analysis of how writers like Elie Wiesel, Jean Améry, Primo Levi and Imre Kertész focus our attention back onto the killing reality of the catastrophe, and its influence on what some of them somberly refer to as “life after Auschwitz.”
“The End of the Holocaust” is a model of critical intelligence, restrained in its judgments, never shrill or accusatory in its disagreements, always illuminating in its insights into the motives and achievements of the major Holocaust writers Rosenfeld discusses. Some readers may be inclined to argue with the alarmed vision of its closing pages, which assemble evidence for the possible coming of a second Holocaust against Israel, but this does not diminish the impact of the preceding chapters.
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/138699/#ixzz1PmEcOSLY
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