Synopses & Reviews
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Christianstadt, Dachau. The names of Nazi concentration camps evoke images of radical destitution. The atrocities we call the Holocaust defy comprehension, while thinkers continue to ponder the possibility of poetry after Auschwitz. And yet a number of people composed poems while imprisoned in the camps. Unlike most documents about the camps, these poems are self-representations that convey the perspective of the inmates who wrote them. Traumatic Verses provides psychoanalytically informed close readings of a range of poems and discusses their significance for aesthetic theory and for research on the camps. It also tells the stories behind the composition and preservation of these poems and the history of their publication since 1945. Most of the poems appear here for the first time in English translation along with the original texts. This book fills a gap left by literary historians, who have mostly ignored writings from the camps and avoided careful scrutiny of literature produced under the Nazi regime. Studies of trauma have concentrated on post-traumatic experiences; discussions of aesthetics after the Holocaust have neglected the issue of the artistic impulse in the camps. On both counts this book constitutes a unique contribution to scholarship, showing that, when read attentively, the poems written in the camps are invaluable sites for confronting the Nazi past. Andres J. Nader is Project Manager at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin, and lectures at the Humboldt University.
Synopsis
The Nazi concentration camps evoke images of extreme horror and radical destitution. The atrocities of the events we call the Holocaust defy comprehension, while thinkers continue to ponder the suggestion that it is barbaric to write "poetry after Auschwitz." And yet a number of people wrote poetry while imprisoned in the camps, for example, Hasso Grabner, Fritz L hner-Beda, and Karl Schnog in Buchenwald; Ruth Kl ger in Christianstadt, a satellite camp of Gross Rosen; and Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz in Dachau. Georg von Boris wrote in Fl ssenburg; Ilse Weber in Theresienstadt; and Alfred Kittner in a succession of smaller camps in Transnistria. Unlike the vast majority of historical documents about the camps, these poems provide insight into the perspective of inmates: they are self-representations that clearly deserve more attention. Traumatic Verses provides psychoanalytically informed close readings of a selection of poems and discusses their significance for aesthetic theory and for research on the concentration camps. It tells the stories behind the composition and preservation of the poems and the history of their publication since 1945. Most of the poems appear here for the first time in English translation along with the original German texts. The book fills a gap left by literary historians, who for the most part have ignored writings from the camps and often have avoided careful scrutiny of the literature produced under the Nazi regime. It also contributes to trauma studies through an analysis of texts composed in an extreme, traumatic environment. Studies of trauma have concentrated on post-traumatic experiences; discussions of aesthetics after the Holocaust have neglected the issue of the artistic impulse in the camps. On both counts this book is a unique contribution to Holocaust studies, showing that, read attentively, poems composed in the camps are productive sites for a contemporary confrontation with the Nazi past, a confrontation that then crucially includes the creative legacy of inmates in the camps. Andr s J. Nader is Project Manager at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin, where he is conducting a project on local strategies for coming to terms with the Nazi past. He also lectures at the Humboldt University.
Synopsis
Close readings of -- and the stories behind -- poems that are direct documents of the Holocaust.
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Christianstadt, Dachau. The names of Nazi concentration camps evoke images of radical destitution. The atrocities we call the Holocaust defy comprehension, while thinkers continue to ponder the possibility of poetry after Auschwitz. And yet a number of people composed poems while imprisoned in the camps. Unlike most documents about the camps, these poems are self-representations that convey the perspective of the inmates who wrotethem. Traumatic Verses provides psychoanalytically informed close readings of a range of poems and discusses their significance for aesthetic theory and for research on the camps. It also tells the stories behind the composition and preservation of these poems and the history of their publication since 1945. Most of the poems appear here for the first time in English translation along with the original texts. This book fills a gap left by literary historians, who have mostly ignored writings from the camps and avoided careful scrutiny of literature produced under the Nazi regime. Studies of trauma have concentrated on post-traumatic experiences; discussions of aesthetics after the Holocaust have neglected the issue of the artistic impulse in the camps. On both counts this book constitutes a unique contribution to scholarship, showing that, when read attentively, the poems written in thecamps are invaluable sites for confronting the Nazi past.
Andr s J. Nader is Project Manager at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin, and lectures at the Humboldt University.
Synopsis
Close readings of -- and the stories behind -- poems that are direct documents of the Holocaust.