The spectre of the Holocaust among survivors -- Staging survivor guilt -- Staging childhood survivor trauma -- Symptoms of psychological problems among children of survivors -- Aggressive behavior among offspring of Holocaust survivors -- Coda
"Focusing on Jews and Gentiles who defied the Nazis by resisting decrees and orders, protesting Nazi genocidal policies, or rescuing Jews, Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. Drama of and about the Holocaust can be staged worldwide, thereby introducing the Shoah to diverse audiences. Moreover, theater affects us emotionally, subliminally, or intellectually (sometimes simultaneously) in a direct way (between actor and audience) that many other art forms cannot match. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays--some quite well-known, others more obscure--that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis"--
In: Shofar: a quarterly interdisciplinary journal of Jewish studies ; official journal of the Midwest and Western Jewish Studies Associations, Band 28, Heft 1, S. 32-54
This essay explores the Nazi glorification of the body as a tool for work and the concomitant notion that Jews, as threats to the Volk, shirked physical labor and thus were biologically crippling to the Reich. In retaliation, the Nazis degraded Jewish bodies and forced them to do hard labor, which they believed conflicted with the Jews' natural constitution. The extermination camp experience became an assault on the body, for the Nazis ultimately deprived Jews of their possessions, families, friends, homes, fortunes, and occupations—the cultural matrix that had previously sustained them. Prisoners were subjected to constant hunger, thirst, fatigue, and bodily harassment; diseases eroded their bodies. Charlotte Delbo's Who Will Carry the Word ? and Michel Vinaver's Overboard are discussed as exemplars of Holocaust plays that delve into the erosion of the body in extermination camps and thus personify literature of the body.