In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • What Remains? The Post-Holocaust Archive in German Memory Culture by Dora Osborne, and: Holocaust Representations in History: An Introduction by Daniel H. Magilow and Lisa Silverman, and: Renegotiating Postmemory: The Holocaust in Contemporary German-Language Jewish Literature by Maria Roca Lizarazu
  • Charlotte Schallié
What Remains? The Post-Holocaust Archive in German Memory Culture. By Dora Osborne. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2020. Pp. 226. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 978-1640140523.
Holocaust Representations in History: An Introduction. 2nd edition. By Daniel H. Magilow and Lisa Silverman. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. Pp. 255. Paper $26.95. ISBN 978-1350091801.
Renegotiating Postmemory: The Holocaust in Contemporary German-Language Jewish Literature. By Maria Roca Lizarazu. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2020. Pp. 226. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 978-1640140455.

In these three recent publications (one being an expanded second edition), Daniel H. Magilow, Lisa Silverman, Dora Osborne, and Maria Roca Lizarazu respond to an important metamemorial shift in Holocaust discourse in the age of hypermediation and representational oversaturation. A central concern for all four authors is to approach the Holocaust as a culturally mediated signifier and memory emblem. Bringing together primary source materials with broader transnational and trans-cultural debates on Holocaust memory, the three studies also provide a springboard for interlinking—complementing, or potentially even replacing—a well-established psychoanalytical framework with recent scholarship in memory, trauma, and media studies. In that these studies probe the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of representation, they are well-suited companion pieces in the graduate studies curriculum as they challenge our understanding of "exhausted tropes of testimony, witnessing, belatedness, trauma, postmemory" (Leslie Morris, qtd. in Lizarazu 5) while questioning notions such as "authenticity" and "unspeakability." Whereas Renegotiating Postmemory by Maria Roca Lizarazu and What Remains by Dora Osborne are primarily geared toward scholars and graduate students in Holocaust, film, and media studies, Holocaust Representations in History: An Introduction by Daniel H. Magilow and Lisa Silverman lends itself as an undergraduate textbook that introduces students to critical issues and concerns in Holocaust studies. Lizarazu rightly points out that as we are transitioning into a world without living eyewitness memory, we are faced with both "an abundance of [Holocaust-themed] images, analogies, and references … and a dwindling factual knowledge of the events" (Lizarazu 1). This inherent contraction is further underscored by media depictions that simulate mediated immediacy and manufactured truth (such as in the case of Binjamin Wilkomirski's fake Holocaust memoir Bruchstücke). It is telling that two of the three publications, Holocaust Representations in History and Renegotiating Postmemory, examine the initial publishing success story of Bruchstücke not as an aberration but as an emblematic case study. As it meticulously adheres to narrative conventions while complying with [End Page 211] genre expectations, Bruchstücke is the paradigmatic Holocaust memoir. Not only does Wilkomirski's work represent a crisis in memory but it also emerges as part of a testimonial trauma discourse that has been all-pervasive in popular culture and media in the post-Holocaust era: the Wilkomirski Affair is "a symptom of an age that valorizes victimhood and embraces public confessions of victimization in autobiographies, talk shows, and reality television" (Magilow and Silverman 144). Given the ubiquity of Holocaust memory in media culture, the three books advocate for a reinvestigation of key paradigms in Holocaust representation. How can we engage in (self-)critical memory and archive work both in scholarly and artistic discourse that counters prevailing processes of memorialization and commodification? Another common focal point is the question of how transgenerational modes of representation are renegotiated vis-à-vis institutionalized and official forms of archival preservation.

Holocaust Representations in History: An Introduction is an essential resource and source book for instructors who seek teaching materials that stimulate student-driven inquiry in the undergraduate Holocaust studies curriculum. Originally published in 2015, the second expanded edition addresses the need to revisit the role and purpose of Holocaust education against the backdrop of rising antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence as well as state-sponsored efforts at Holocaust revisionism in contemporary culture and political discourse. Daniel H. Magilow and Lisa Silverman convincingly argue that "these events make the study of Holocaust representation in history more relevant than ever" (xi). Designed...

pdf

Share