Holocaust Literature and Jewish Horror

miguel1984 said:
I have not yet read the graphic novel Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, written by Dave Maass and illustrated by Patrick Lay and Ezra Rose, but it was inspired by the opera Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, by Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, who wrote it while being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Both were later murdered in Auschwitz.
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I've never heard of it. I'll have to research it. I wasn't aware of The Plot by Will Eisner either. I have that waiting for me at the library when I head over there. Speaking of graphic novels, I should probably reread Maus by Art Spiegelman. It has been many years since I've read it. It was a landmark graphic novel when it came out.
 


(Centipede Press edition art)

James Herbert's novel The Spear is about a neo-Nazi cult operating in Britain, and their dark obsession with resurrecting Heinrich Himmler through occult practices. Himmler was deeply into the occult in real life. I've never read the novel, but I did read the below "non-fiction" work related to it. It was a fun read but a bunch of nonsense, imo. I do remember an interesting, bastardized quote from Heinrich Heine.

" Once the restraining talisman of the Christian cross is broken in Germany, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have sung, will return again. The ancient stone gods will rise from the forgotten ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor with his giant hammer will smash the Gothic cathedrals. When that time comes, a sound will arise in Germany as none before heard in history."

(written prior to WWI)

 
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Artist Bronislaw Linke.
"The Prayer of the Killed" (1942)
 
miguel1984 said:
I have not yet read the graphic novel Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, written by Dave Maass and illustrated by Patrick Lay and Ezra Rose, but it was inspired by the opera Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, by Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, who wrote it while being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Both were later murdered in Auschwitz.
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I just read this. Twice! It is outstanding. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, miguel1984.

I also read The Plot by Will Eisner. A very informative and entertaining read.
 
bendk said:
miguel1984 said:
I have not yet read the graphic novel Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, written by Dave Maass and illustrated by Patrick Lay and Ezra Rose, but it was inspired by the opera Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, by Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, who wrote it while being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Both were later murdered in Auschwitz.
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I just read this. Twice! It is outstanding. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, miguel1984.

I also read The Plot by Will Eisner. A very informative and entertaining read.
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You're welcome. I haven't read Death Strikes yet, mostly because I was busy finishing Kabuki by David Mack; it took me a year and a half to finish it. You should read Judenhass by Dave Sim; it is fairly short and available for free online, per Sim's wishes.
 


I read one play by Eli Wiesel called The Trial of God. He based it on a similar event that he witnessed when he was in Auschwitz. He changed the setting, but the story is the same.
The play is set in a Ukrainian village in the year 1649, shortly after a devastating pogrom. A Jewish innkeeper and his daughter are among the few survivors of the pogrom. Three traveling Jewish artists arrive in the village to perform a play. The innkeeper demands that the actors stage a mock trial to indict God for His perceived silence in the face of evil.
Witnesses are heard, evidence is presented, and conclusions are drawn—all leading to a verdict. (no spoilers)
The play grapples with theodicy—the question of why a benevolent God allows suffering and evil.

I had a chance to see Eli Wiesel speak at Kent State University many years ago, but I just got over a bout of pneumonia and was still constantly coughing. I didn't want to ruin it for other people, so I didn't go. What a bummer.

I guess there are many plays that deal with the Holocaust.

Holocaust Theater Catalog | Theater works relating to the Holocaust from 1933 to the present

Some of Ilka Schönbein's puppet plays could probably be included.
 
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As soon as I saw this book, I knew I wanted to read it. It is such a perfect fit for TLO and this thread. Despite its 180 pages, I breezed through it in two days.
Although this short novel is advertised as being geared toward a younger audience, the themes it deals with are very mature and disturbing. The book begins with this epigraph:

"The decision had to be made to annihilate... every Jewish child and to make this people disappear from the face of the earth. This is being accomplished."
-Heinrich Himmler, chief hangman of the Nazi Holocaust, and leader of the dreaded German SS squads, in a 1943 speech. Strutting about in black uniforms, SS killers wore death-skull insignias on their caps.

The novel is set just after World War II. The story revolves around an American soldier who remains in Europe after the war. He is a ventriloquist, but not particularly talented. One day, he discovers in his closet that his dummy is inhabited by the ghost of a young boy named Avrom Amos Poliakov —a dybbuk, which is a Jewish ghost or spirit. Avrom was killed by the Nazis during the war, and he has unfinished tasks. Determined to complete them, Avrom asks him if he can inhabit his body during performances. He reluctantly agrees, and suddenly, his ventriloquist act becomes a great success with Avrom’s presence. The crowds grow larger as Avrom uses these opportunities to seek out his killer among the audience.

There is some levity in the banter with the dummy.

An interesting aside. I read something that Jon could enlighten us on. It was this passage:

.. he opened the wicker suitcase to put a black blindfold over the dummy's eyes for the night. It was tradition. The ancient Greeks believed the spirit of the dead escaped through the eyes. It was the least a ventriloquist could do.

I initially couldn't find the passage, so I asked ChatGPT is if it could remember what it said. This was its reply:

Certainly! In the novel “The Entertainer and the Dybbuk” by Sid Fleischman, there is a fascinating detail about placing an eye mask on a ventriloquist dummy when it is stored in its case. The protagonist, Freddie, discovers that when he covers the dummy’s eyes with a mask, it prevents the dybbuk (the ghostly presence inhabiting the dummy) from seeing the world. This clever technique allows Freddie to control when the dybbuk can observe and interact with the surroundings. By covering the dummy’s eyes, Freddie effectively limits the dybbuk’s awareness, ensuring that it remains dormant until needed for performances or other purposes. It’s a small but significant element in the story, adding to the eerie and mysterious atmosphere of the novel.

I didn't remember any of this, so I reread it. Nothing like this is in the book. It was completely made up by the AI. wtf?
 
While searching for Stephen Gammell’s illustrations for the Shawn Coss thread, I discovered ‘Terrible Things’ by Eve Bunting, a book illustrated by Gammell that addresses the Holocaust. It is an animal fable based on the famous post-war confessional prose by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller. The origin of the text dates back to a speech Niemöller made for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on January 6, 1946. Niemöller’s words were a reflection on the inaction of German intellectuals and clergy, including himself, during the Nazi’s rise to power and the subsequent purging of target groups. The prose expresses themes of persecution, guilt, repentance, solidarity, and personal responsibility.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It is a powerful reminder of the consequences of apathy and the importance of speaking out against injustice.

I got the book at the library and read it. It is pretty basic and aimed at a younger audience, but it is a good reminder for all. Gammell's illustrations are very effective.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4x6YBK1wo&t=84s



I have also been "reading" Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. I read this in my 20s, but now it is on Audible, so I am listening to it again. Arendt is famous for the phrase "the banality of evil". Eichmann wasn't a larger-than-life monster, but a simple bureaucrat. He took pride in his work. It just happens that his job was sending millions of people to die in concentration camps.
 
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I remember that Centipede Press published The Tribe by Bari Wood.

"Originally published in 1981, it intertwines Jewish mythology and folklore with a police procedural. The story follows a group of Jewish people who not only survive the horrors of the concentration camps but also seem to thrive in the aftermath. Their secret, which they carry with them to contemporary Brooklyn, allows them to maintain their close-knit relationship and continue their deadly cabal. However, their past comes back to haunt them."

Valancourt also published it in paperback. I've never read it, but I think I have an old paperback version somewhere.

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I read a really good Jewish horror story recently. "The Last Golem" by William Scott Home from his book Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons. Set in WWII, the Nazis raid a ghetto trapping everyone in a synagogue. All are killed, except one who won't 'cooperate'.

Beautiful art by Stephen E. Fabian.

This book has become extremely difficult to find. Ligotti has mentioned this author before, but my memory fails me as to what he said.
 
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This is one of my favorites stories from this book, as well! Here is what Thomas Ligotti said about this book :

'The weirdest stories I’ve ever read composed the collection Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons (1977) by William Scott Home. The prose is so complex and recondite that it’s all but unreadable, much like that of Clark Ashton Smith'

('Thomas Ligotti On Weird Fiction' (2011) by Jeff VanderMeer.)

bendk said:


I read a really good Jewish horror story recently. "The Last Golem" by William Scott Home from his book Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons. Set in WWII, the Nazis raid a ghetto tapping everyone in a synagogue. All are killed, except one who won't 'cooperate'.

Beautiful art by Stephen E. Fabian.

This book has become extremely difficult to find. Ligotti has mentioned this author before, but my memory fails me as to what he said.
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I got this book through an interlibrary loan hoping to find something interesting.

Introduction: Gothic Matters

Part 1: A Spectralized Past

- Always Already Gothic: S. Y. Agnon's European Tales of Terror
- Maternal Macabre: Feminine Subjectivity at the Edge of the Shtetl in Dvora Baron and Ya'akov Shteinberg
- After the Nightmare of the Holocaust: Gothic Temporalities in Leah Goldberg and Edgar Allan Poe

Part 2: Haunted Nation

- Dark Jerusalem: Amos Oz's Anxious Literary Cartography between 1948 and 1967
- Historiographic Perversions: Echoes of Otranto in A. B. Yehoshua's Mr. Mani
- A Séance for the Self: Memory, Nonmemory, and the Reorientation of History in Almog Behar and Toni Morrison
Coda: "Here Are Our Monsters" - Hebrew Horror from the Political to Pop
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

------
I've read some of S.Y. Agnon's work but not the titles she suggested. I'll bet I have them though. Just browsing, I found three movies. One of which I was already aware of because Quentin Tarantino said it was the best movie of the year for 2013. Big Bad Wolves. The other two sound interesting, but their critical reception looks pretty low. JeruZalem and Cannon Fodder.. I will definitely watch Big Bad Wolves.
 
‘The Day The Clown Cried' Script Resurrected: Turned Into Famed Unreleased Jerry Lewis Holocaust Tale, Funded ‘Clown' Script Might Finally See The Light Of Day

The Day The Clown Cried is getting another chance at the big screen. Rewritten by Jerry Lewis who starred in and directed a 1972 feature drama that went unfinished and unreleased, the script for the Holocaust tale is being revived by K. Jam Media founder Kia Jam.
Jam said he has executed a purchase agreement on the original script by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton. Lewis took a hand in re-shaping it as a starring and directing vehicle. Jam is going back to the original screenplay. He said he has the production financing, and the next step is to secure a filmmaker with the guts to tell a most harrowing story.
Lewis disavowed the film and did his best to make sure it never got released, probably because of a combination of rights issues and an outcry over the audacity of the iconic comic actor setting a film in the concentration camps involving the deaths of Jewish children at the hands of the Nazis in WWII. He was accused of unabashedly chasing an Oscar.
Lewis starred as Helmut Doork, a failing German circus clown long past the days when he was a famous performer touring North America and Europe as part of the Ringling Brothers circus. Things get worse when he is overheard drunkenly mocking Hitler in a bar. He's turned over to the Gestapo and imprisoned in a Nazi camp for political prisoners. There, he finds an outlet for his talents: entertaining the suffering Jewish children who are segregated in a part of the camp. After suffering numerous beatings for engaging the children, the clown is used by the camp commandant as a Pied Piper to help load the children on boxcars to Auschwitz.

I heard the option expired this year. I had no idea they had planned to release it. I was going to post the link to the article, but it contains major spoilers (those idiots!). So, in case anyone wants to see it, don't read more about it.

Also, if your library has the streaming service Kanopy, they just added Music Box to their titles. (A fine film mentioned earlier in the thread)
 
I just reread Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. I first read this in my early 20s. Famous for describing "The banality of evil." Eichman did not look or act like a monster. He looked like a clerk. He was just doing his job. When he did it well, hundreds of thousands of people died.
The book describes the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a key figure in orchestrating the Holocaust. It explores the nature of evil, suggesting that Eichmann was not a monstrous figure but rather an ordinary man who simply followed orders without questioning the morality of his actions. This concept of the "banality of evil" challenges our understanding of human behavior and the capacity for ordinary individuals to commit heinous acts.

A few interesting observations I remember ref. Holocaust literature:

The most horrible things in the world happen in the bright light of day when everyone is watching. (-Primo Levi?)

Elie Wiesel: When he and his family were waiting at the train station to be "relocated", a man ran up screaming and shouting for everyone to run, because they were taking them to be murdered. Everyone thought him a ranting and raving lunatic. Now, in hindsight, he said "He was the only one that was sane. We were expecting the worst, not the unthinkable."
 
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