Description
Book SynopsisPolish Literature and Genocide presents the attitude of Polish literature to the 20th-century acts of genocide. This volume examines the literary representations of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the massacre in Srebrenica in a rich, detailed, and comprehensive way, expanding the existing research and, in some cases, challenging the former sometimes ossified ideas. Polish literature not only reflects the obvious extermination of Jews and Poles, but also records what had been largely overlooked: the extermination of disabled and mentally ill people, the Roma and Sinti, and the Soviet prisoners of war by the Nazis. This volume includes analysis of the literary works of Wladyslaw Szlengel, the most prominent Polish-language poet in the Warsaw ghetto; the peculiar reception of Julian Tuwim's famous poem for children Locomotive; the memoir of Leon Weliczker, a prisoner of the Janowska concentration camp in Lvov and a member of the death brigade' (Sonderkommando); the origins o
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Introduction: The Holocausts
Prologue: Echoes of the Armenian Genocide
1 "Disinfection": The Extermination of the Mentally Ill
2 Władysław Szlengel (in the Warsaw Ghetto)
3 The Locomotive (to Bełżec)
4 The Death Brigade (Leon Weliczker’s)
5 Not Only Asfitz: The Destruction of the Gypsies
6 "History Rounds Off Skeletons to the Nearest Zero": The Extermination of the Soviet Prisoners of War
7 "Professor Spanner” by Zofia Nałkowska and "Soap from Human Fat"
8 Tadeusz Różewicz’s Excursion to the Museum (and Library)
Epilogue: "It Repeats Itself Before Our Eyes" –– Srebrenica
Bibliography
Index of Names
