Holocaust and Film

The problematic representation of Mizrahi Jews in Israeli films has been extensively researched over the past few decades. The subject was first thoroughly analyzed in Ella Shohat's comprehensive 1989 study, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation. In her book she uses a Marxist approach, claiming that Israeli films express the views of the Ashkenazi hegemony and help preserve its supremacy. Shohat discusses the modes through which an Orientalist dichotomy dominated Eretz-Israeli and Israeli cinema from the outset. In films that portrayed an encounter between Ashkenazi Jews and Mizrahi Jews, the former represented Western values-they were rational, enlightened, and compassionate-while Mizrahi Jews were mainly depicted as primitive, inferior, and violent. Over the years, scholars have pointed to other features in the cinematic representation of Ashkenazi-Mizrahi relations in Israeli Bourekas films, which were dominant from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, but Shohat's preliminary observations regarding an Orientalist dichotomy in the 1950s have become generally accepted in Israeli film studies. This article revisits the perceived Orientalist dichotomy through an analysis of 1950s films that focus on encounters between Mizrahi Jews and Holocaust survivors (Ashkenazi Jews) and their integration into Israeli society. These films include Tent City [Ir Ha'ohalim] (Leopold Aryeh Lahola, 1951), Faithful City [Kirya Ne'emana] (Józef Lejtes, 1952), and Hill 24 Doesn't Answer [Givaa 24 Eina Ona] (Thorold Dickinson, 1955). The article claims that in these films Mizrahi Jews are shown as integrating more quickly than Holocaust survivors. Conversely, Holocaust survivors are presented in the films-much like they were in many other cultural realms at that time-as a broken people who ultimately assimilated, albeit with much difficulty.

"If the international Finance-Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples of the earth once again into a world war, the result will be ...the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Hitler's speech to the Reichstag, January 30, 1939. "Europe" as defined by Hitler himself, was "the European nations and their overseas possessions," inclusive of "French Algeria" and its French departments," the French protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia" - also called "France" (see maps 1, 2, 3), and Italian Libya/Italy N. Africa (Libya)."
France: Metropolitan France and its overseas territories/possessions (territoires d’outre-mer); officially the French Republic (French: République française) is a sovereign country in Western Europe that includes several overseas regions and territories. Metropolitan France and Overseas France together form what is officially called the French Republic.

Metropolitan France (French: France métropolitaine or la Métropole – as used by General de Gaulle in 1941) is the part of France located in continental Europe. It is also referred to as "continental France, "mainland France" (as used by Renée Poznanski, expert on the Shoah in France), or as the French mainland.

La France d'outre-mer, or l'Outre-mer (Overseas France) is the collective name for French territories outside 'mainland France.' Because of its proximity to mainland France, French North Africa was considered "le prolongement de la France" and "an extension of Europe."

A settant’anni dalla retata del 16 ottobre 1943, non esiste alcuna immagi- ne originale, fissa o in movimento, che rappresenti gli eventi di quella tragica mattina. Se la grande razzia degli ebrei di Roma rappresenta, in un certo sen- so, la data simbolo della Shoah italiana, non esiste un’immagine originale em- blematica cui rimandare per far riferimento alla sorte degli ebrei italiani tra il 1943 e il 1945. Nonostante ciò, si è comunque costituito un immaginario sto- rico a partire dalle numerose elaborazioni culturali che hanno accompagnato la costruzione della memoria pubblica di quegli eventi. A tal proposito, questo intervento sarà costituito da una breve rassegna delle opere cinematografiche che hanno contribuito alla formazione di questo multiforme e frammentato immaginario.

Race remains problematic in the twenty-first century for the reconstruction of historical German Holocaust memory through fictional cinema productions. A case study of black British director Amma Asante’s 2018 British romantic war drama film, Where Hands Touch, suggests the difficulty in adapting national race and race representation discourses for global Afro-diaspora audiences outside the German national and supranational European cinema context. The film caused controversy among transnational black audiences and American pop culture outlets. Even black British viewers flat-out rejected it on Twitter. They alleged that Asante deployed clichéd depictions of neo-romanticised interracial romance and naïve reformulations of historical racism, which were interpreted as an example of self-reproducing Blaxploitation. All this points to under-researched structures of transnational minority representations operating within contemporary Afro-European pop culture cinema. I foreground these relations as interstitial culture space, thus linking transnational German cinema’s racially loaded themes like the Holocaust and hybridity to a larger cinema of diasporic storytelling and questions about transnational film scholarship in the twenty-first century.

De Ratones y Héroes, debe ser leído para contemplar con la debida distancia la som­bra narrativa de Maus sobre la producción imaginaria contemporánea. En el hilo secre­to que anuda los campos de concentración con el campamento de refugiados de Sabra y Chatila de Vals con Bashir, el campo se con­vierte en un umbral invisible del documental y la ficción contemporáneos, incluso en sus versiones más frívolas: desde las alambradas de Gorazde y Palestina, en la franja de Gaza, de Joe Sacco o de las películas de Rithy Panh y Joshua Oppenheimer hasta la velada me­táfora que anida en la prisión de la serie The Walking Dead, en la isla de la serie televisiva Perdidos o en la Zona Fantasma en la que son confinados los héroes Marvel de Civil War constituyen retornos incómodos de ese nin­guna parte en el que el individuo puede ser excluido, asesinado y profanado.
Estas palabras de Iván Pintor están extraídas de su prólogo en “De Ratones y Héroes” y describen perfectamente lo que se puede encontrar en este libro. Un recorrido por la memoria, no sólo de los supervivientes del Holocausto y de sus descendientes, sino también de todos aquellos elementos que configuran el imaginario de una obra tan fascinante como Maus. De Ratones y Héroes es el texto elegido por Ediciones Marmotilla para su salida al mercado, no sólo por su calidad, sino porque su autora, Raquel Crisóstomo, hace un recorrido por todas las influencias que conducen a la elaboración de una historia como Maus, desde un punto de vista absolutamente interdisciplinar relacionando el trabajo de Spiegelman no sólo con la memoria del Holocausto, sino con todas aquellos elementos que llevan a la configuración de esa obra maestra, desde los clásicos del cómic, hasta la propaganda bélica y el cine de animación. Una publicación, en definitiva, imprescindible para profundizar en el imaginario de Maus.

This book analyzes sensationalized Nazi and Holocaust representations in Anglo-American cultural and political discourses. Recognizing that this history is increasingly removed from contemporary life, it explains how irreverent representations can help rejuvenate the story for successive generations of new learners. Surveying seventy-five-years of transatlantic activities, the work erects counterposing categories of “constructive and destructive memorializing,” providing scholars with a new framework for elucidating both this history and its historicization.

The film "Le Fils de Saul", by László Nemes, avoids the pitfall of offering a fiction of the Shoah. It is a cinema of enunciation, where the film "says" the barbarity of the extermination, thus questioning the spectator, who is called on to respond.

To książka o polskiej pamięci Zagłady i o tym, jak – obok wielu innych czynników - kształtowało ją polskie kino. Zbudowany przez nie obraz Holokaustu konfrontuję z wiedzą historyczną, pracami naukowców związanych z Żydowskim Instytutem Historycznym oraz Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów; ze wspomnieniami Ocalonych, wojennymi relacjami i dziennikami. Odsłaniają rzeczywistość znacznie mniej jednoznaczną niż wizja, którą przez lata budowali polscy twórcy filmowi. Nie zawsze dlatego, że tak właśnie chcieli. Znacznie częściej dlatego, że nie mogli powiedzieć więcej, ponieważ cenzorzy (także ci najstraszniejsi – wewnętrzni) zamykali im usta, a państwowy lub prywatny mecenas nie godził się na sfinansowanie produkcji niewygodnego filmu lub już gotowy (jeśli rzecz działa się w czasach PRL) kierował na półkę. Wykroczenie poza obowiązujące ramy narracji o II wojnie światowej i polsko-żydowskich stosunkach oznaczało także odrzucenie dzieła przez widzów. „Te” filmy nigdy zresztą nie cieszyły się ich przesadnym zainteresowaniem.
W latach 1945-2010 powstało w Polsce 18 pełnometrażowych fabularnych filmów kinowych poświęconych Zagładzie Żydów - zrealizowanych przez polskich reżyserów, z udziałem polskich aktorów i ekip, w polskich zespołach lub firmach producenckich (a nie jedynie przy ich współpracy). Interesowały mnie tylko te produkcje, na których kształt i wymowę mieli wpływ wyłącznie lub przede wszystkim Polacy i które były realizowane głównie z myślą o polskich widzach. Za takie nie sposób uznać – skądinąd znakomitych i wartych osobnej analizy – Gorzkich żniw (Bittere Ernte, 1985) i Europy Europy (Europa Europa, 1990) Agnieszki Holland, Tragarza puchu (Warszawa. Année 5703, 1992) Janusza Kijowskiego oraz Pianisty (The Pianist, 2002) Romana Polańskiego, choć ich autorami są wychowani w polskiej kulturze twórcy.
Kamienie na macewie otwiera opowieść o Ulicy Granicznej (1949) Aleksandra Forda, a zamyka rzecz o Joannie (2010) Feliksa Falka. Nie zdecydowałam się na umieszczenie wśród omawianych pozycji filmów telewizyjnych oraz spektakli Teatru Telewizji. Nie ze względu na ich liczbę – w ciągu minionych dekad powstało ich zaledwie kilka, można je policzyć na palcach jednej ręki. Nie jest jednak możliwe zbadanie ich recepcji (niektóre tytuły poza premierową emisją nie były wyświetlane, w zbiorowej świadomości zaistniały więc w znikomym bądź żadnym zakresie), a przepastne archiwa Telewizji Polskiej są znacznie mniej przyjazne badaczowi niż Archiwum Filmoteki Narodowej w Warszawie. Ma to dla mnie znaczenie o tyle, że pisząc o każdym filmie, staram się go nie tylko zanalizować, ale także opowiedzieć o tym, jak powstawał. Skąd wziął się pomysł, jak wygląda relacja pomiędzy pierwowzorem literackim (jeśli taki był – adaptacjami jest połowa opisanych w Kamieniach na macewie filmów) a zrealizowanym na jego podstawie obrazem. Jakie motywacje kierowały pisarzami i reżyserami, kiedy decydowali się dotknąć niepopularnego, najeżonego rafami tematu. Jak w miarę upływu czasu (czasem to było kilka miesięcy, czasami kilkadziesiąt lat) projekt rozwijał się i zmieniał, i od czego to zależało. Jak wyglądała droga filmu na ekrany (jeśli się na nich znalazł). Jak odebrali go krytycy i widzowie. I wreszcie – na ile pokazane w nim sytuacje są zgodne z prawdą.

This book is about the Polish memory of the Holocaust and how, among many other factors, it was shaped by Polish cinema. I confront the image of the Holocaust created by the cinema with historical knowledge, the work of scientists associated with the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and the Center for Research on the Extermination of Jews, with the memories of the survivors, wartime reports and journals written during and after the war. They reveal a reality that is much less clear-cut than the vision that Polish filmmakers have been building over the years. Not because it was what they wanted. Much more often because they could not say more, because the censors (including the most terrible - internal ones) shut their mouths, and the state or private patron did not agree to finance the production of an “uncomfortable” film or they directed the ready-made film (if it happened in the times of the Polish People's Republic) to shelf. Going beyond the binding framework of the narrative about World War II and Polish-Jewish relations also meant the rejection of the work by viewers. Anyway, "these" films never enjoyed their excessive interest.
In the years 1945-2010, 18 full-length feature films on the Holocaust were made in Poland - made by Polish directors, with the participation of Polish actors and crews, in Polish production companies (and not only with their cooperation). I was interested only in those productions which shape and message were influenced exclusively or mainly by Poles, and which were realized mainly with Polish viewers in mind. It is impossible to consider as such - otherwise excellent and worthy of separate analysis - Bitter Harvest (Bittere Ernte/Gorzkie żniwa, 1985) and Europa Europa (1990) by Agnieszka Holland, Warsaw. Année 5703 (Tragarz puchu, 1992) by Janusz Kijowski and The Pianist (Pianista, 2002) by Roman Polański, although their authors are Poles.
Stones on the Matzevah starts with a chapter about Graniczna Street (Ulica Graniczna, 1949) by Aleksander Ford, and ends with a chapter about Joanna (2010) by Feliks Falk. I have not decided to include television films and Television Theater productions among the works discussed. Not because of their number - only a few have been created in the past decades, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. However, it is not possible to examine their reception (some titles, apart from the premiere broadcast, were not displayed, so they appeared in the collective consciousness to little or no extent), and the vast archives of television are much less researcher-friendly than the Archives of the National Film Archive in Warsaw. It matters to me because when I write about each film, I try not only to analyze it, but also to tell about how it was made. Where did the idea come from, what is the relation between the literary prototype (if there was one - adaptations are half of the films described in Stones on the Matzevah) and the image based on it. What were the motivations of writers and directors when they decided to touch on an unpopular topic riddled with reefs. How over time (sometimes it was a few months, sometimes several dozen years) the project developed and changed, and what it depended on. What was the way of the film to the screens (if it finally appeared on them). How it was received by critics and viewers. And finally - to what extent are the situations shown in it true.

Der vorliegende Band rekonstruiert die bisher wenig beachtete Auseinandersetzung der bis 1961 entstandenen westdeutschen dokumentarischen Filme mit der NS-Vergangenheit, dem Holocaust und dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Aufbauend auf eine eingehende Archivarbeit werden auch Filme diskutiert, die in der Fachliteratur bislang nur selten oder gar nicht aufgegriffen wurden. Die in den Filmen zu erkennenden Diskurse knüpfen an bekannte Deutungen an. Sie überraschen durch eine Vielfalt an Formaten, Distributionswegen und Aufführungskontexten, etwa bei dokumentarischen Fernsehserien oder der politischen Bildungsarbeit, die auf einen differenzierteren Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheit in der frühen Bundesrepublik hindeutet als bisher angenommen.

https://edition-dokart.avinus.org/

This essay begins by observing that while images and texts that emanated from the 'final stage' of the Holocaust seem to be a privileged source in depictions of the Holocaust, the specific features of this stage itself often remain unclear. What was the ‘final stage’ of the Holocaust? Did it have any clear and definite contours? How is it conceived in relation to other, earlier stages of the Holocaust? And are there any particular meanings that people associate with this stage? The first part of this essay explores these questions by examining the tensions between the presence and absence of the ‘final stage’ in Holocaust fiction and historical studies. I propose to approach this stage as constituting an edge to the common ‘main story’ of the Holocaust. In the essay’s second part, I apply this conceptualization in tracing 2 different ways in which survivors’ testimonies define the ‘final stage’ in terms of experience, memory and narrative, while asking which novel periodizations of the Holocaust survivors’ perspectives could introduce.

Wynalezienie bomby atomowej było przełomowym wydarzeniem nie tylko w dziejach II wojny światowej, ale historii świata w ogóle. Niektórzy uważają, że był to wstęp do współczesności. Dopiero od tego momentu ludzkość jest w stanie unicestwić się w całości, popełnić masowe samobójstwo. Tak potężna broń w rękach tak niewielu ludzi budzi uzasadniony lęk. Szczególnie, jeśli weźmiemy pod uwagę absurdalne (przy odpowiednim dystansie czasowym) powody, dla których Ziemia stawała na krawędzi wojny atomowej. Nie mogło obyć się bez filmowej debaty na ten temat. W końcu w grę wchodzi życie wszystkich mieszkańców naszej planety.

Celem pracy jest całościowe nakreślenie obrazowania bomby atomowej w filmach powstałych w latach 1945-2013. Opierając się na literaturze historycznej, socjologicznej, geopolitycznej, fizycznej i filmoznawczej a także źródłach internetowych, wyróżniam przedstawienia broni nuklearnej różniące się pod względem retorycznym i estetycznym. Dzięki temu możliwe jest zauważenie i zrozumienie zmiany stosunku społeczeństwa, polityków i filmowców do bomby jądrowej.

Praca składa się z dwóch rozdziałów. Pierwszy z nich to chronologiczny przekrój filmów fabularnych na tle zmian politycznych, gdzie dużą rolę poświęcam współczesnej historii Stanów Zjednoczonych. W tym rozdziale skupiam się na zabiegach formalnych a także nastrojach społecznych, które można odczytać z kontekstu filmów.

Drugi rozdział podzielony jest według stosunku powstałych filmów dokumentalnych i instruktażowych do broni nuklearnej. Zauważywszy strategie retoryczne poszczególnych filmów, rozróżniam je na obrońców i oskarżycieli atomu oraz nieliczne wyjątki wykraczające poza ten układ binarny.

Zamierzeniem tej książki nie było stworzenie historii politycznej, społecznej lub gospodarczej Trzeciej Rzeszy – ani nawet jej kina. Kino nazistowskie potraktowane zostało jako wielka machina wyobrażeń społecznych, która w ciągu dwunastu lat swojego istnienia wyprodukowała ponad 1100 filmów. Centralną figurę fantazji kina Trzeciej Rzeszy stanowi ciało: zamknięte w mundurze ciało niemieckie oraz nagie, monstrualne ciało obce (żydowskie, chore, kobiece). Zamknięte w mundurze ciała niemieckie miały być w stanie znieść każdą konfrontację, przetrwać każde niebezpieczeństwo i nigdy nie rozpaść się. Ciała jednak bezustannie rozpadają się na poszczególne części – twarze, gesty, dłonie i stopy – aby następnie złożyć się z powrotem w zamkniętą całość zidentyfikowaną z narodem. Żydowskie, chore i kobiece ciała to z kolei trauma, z którą nazizm usiłuje sobie na wszelkie możliwe sposoby poradzić: od prób kontroli do konieczności eliminacji wyrażonej ostatecznie w defragmentacji i degradacji martwego ciała. Jednocześnie jednak ciała niemieckie i nie-niemieckie wydają się intymnie splecione, gdy zadawana w obrazie filmowym przemoc seksualizuje się. Analiza filmów i obrazów Leni Riefenstahl, Veita Harlana, Fritza Hipplera, Hansa Scheinhoffa, filmów medycznych i propagandowych z getta warszawskiego ostatecznie składają się na opis biopolityki i seksualności nazizmu.

Recenzje:
  Olga Wróbel, Za mundurem panny sznurem, "Notes na 6 tygodni", nr 104, 2016;
  Bartosz Żurawiecki, Reżim cielesny, "Kino", nr 05, 2016;
  Tomasz Żukowski,  Recenzja: Jan Borowicz, Nagość i mundur. Ciało w filmie Trzeciej Rzeszy, "Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały" nr 12, 2016;
  Gaweł Janik, Ciało obce, obcość ciała, "Narracje o Zagładzie", nr 2, 2016.

The Passenger is based on the 1961 novel by Zofia Posmysz, which depicts her own experiences as an Auschwitz prisoner. The novel was inspired by a 1959 incident on board the Place de la Concorde when, while travelling, Posmysz overheard a German tourist calling out in what seemed a familiar voice. The terror she felt at the thought that she could be faced with her former tormentor prompted Posmysz to try to imagine the situation from the other side, that of the Auschwitz guard who tortured her. In 1959 Posmysz wrote a radio play, Passenger in Cabin 45 (directed by Jerzy Rakowiecki, with Aleksandra Śląska and Jan Świderski), and in 1960, a TV novella, The Passenger (directed by Andrzej Munk, and starring Ryszarda Hanin, Zofia Mrozowska, and Edward Dziewoński), with similar plots about two women, a former guard and a prisoner, travelling on the same ocean liner years after the war ended. Shortly after, Posmysz and Andrzej Munk wrote a screenplay together for the movie version, The Passenger, which was released unfinished after Monk’s death in a car accident in 1961.  In 1962 Posmysz released the book version of the story. Weinberg’s opera is based on that book.

„Du sollst dir kein Bildnis noch irgendein Abbild machen“ (Exodus 20, 4), weder von Gott noch vom Holocaust. Diesen Eindruck muss jeder gewinnen, der aufmerksam Claude Lanzmanns Einspruch gegen „Schindlers Liste“ aus dem Jahr 1994 gelesen hat. Wie steht es jedoch mit Klängen und deren Wiedergabe? Gilt auch hier die strenge Beschränkung  auf persönlich verbürgte und kommunizierte Erfahrung? Was macht einen Film und seinen Soundtrack „authentisch“ bzw. ergreifend? Welche Art der Darstellung ist überhaupt gewünscht bzw. wünschenswert? An zwei Filmen über den Holocaust, nämlich Schindler’s List (1993) und The Pianist (2002) werden recht unterschiedliche Möglichkeiten des Umgangs mit Musik demonstriert.

Gli occhiali d’oro (1987) è l’undicesimo lungometraggio di finzione diretto da Giuliano Montaldo. Co-produzione tra Ita- lia, Francia e Jugoslavia, presentato in concorso alla 44° Mostra internazionale d’arte cinematografica di Venezia, il film ha ot- tenuto l’Osella d’oro per i costumi e la scenografia, per poi vin- cere l’anno successivo il David di Donatello per la Miglior colonna sonora originale (Ennio Morricone). Scritto dal regi- sta genovese assieme a Nicola Badalucco e Antonella Grassi, il film è l’adattamento dell’omonimo racconto di Giorgio Bassani, prima pubblicato da Einaudi nel 1958, poi riapparso nella raccolta Le storie ferraresi del 1960. Gli occhiali d’oro è considerato il secondo libro appartenente al ciclo bassaniano Il romanzo di Ferrara, preceduto da Cinque storie ferraresi (1956) e seguito da Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962), Dietro la porta (1964), L’airone (1968) e L’odore del fieno (1972). Se il racconto di Bassani è parte integrante del grande romanzo storico dello scrittore bolognese dedicato alla sua città adottiva, il film di Montaldo rappresenta l’ennesimo capitolo della sua indagine politica sul rapporto tra cinema e storia

While many works have been published on different aspects of the Holocaust and genocides, their aftermath and impact on society still require further research and discussion in scholarly literature. This book illuminates unknown aspects of the aftermath of the Holocaust and genocides, and discusses trials of Holocaust and genocide perpetrators, commemoration of the victims, attempts to revive Jewish national life, and outbreaks of post-World War II anti-Semitism. It also analyzes the representation of the Holocaust and genocides in literature, press and film. The volume includes thirteen articles, which are based on recently discovered archival materials, and provides new approaches to the research of the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust.

More Info: Hardback, ISBN-13: 978-1-5275-4740-7; ISBN-10: 1-5275-4740-X
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/aftermath-of-the-holocaust-and-genocides

Paperback edition, 2023. ISBN: 1-5275-9544-7;  ISBN13: 978-1-5275-9544-6.
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-4740-7

A partir da história cultural da repercussão da série de TV “Holocausto” (1978), que redefiniu políticas de governo e instaurou uma inédita centralidade do testemunho no campo da cultura, abalando o modo como o genocídio judeu era até então percebido, o artigo pretende discutir, em cotejo com a série “Chernobyl” (2019) e outras produções cinematográficas, o que pode o audiovisual face a distintas formas de violência de Estado, a um passado traumático e a um futuro ameaçado. Para tanto, por meio das contribuições da historiadora Annette Wieviorka e do filósofo e historiador das imagens Georges Didi-Huberman, bem como do pensador de origem indígena Ailton Krenak e da escritora Svetlana Aleksiévitch, entre outros, exploraremos as relações entre políticas da memória, pedagogia e imaginação, em um contexto de catástrofes ambientais e pandemias globais.

Maus de Art Spiegelman supone el triunfo de la historieta como un medio que no pide prestada su legitimidad de las otras artes y que construye una de las más terribles y maravillosas representaciones del horror del Holocausto con recursos que son propios del cómic. Spiegelman, autor de este premio Pulitzer de 1992, activa distintos resortes y estrategias para enfrentarse a la representación de lo inenarrable y a la amenaza necesaria del olvido de los supervivientes.

absTracT Yoram Gross is Australia's most successful director of animated films for children. As an adolescent in wartime Poland, he lost his father and grandparents in the Ho-locaust and, with his immediate family, evaded capture by the Germans. A pioneer in depicting genocide, and war through animated films for younger children, he has explicitly and implicitly projected his experiences of survival and separation from his family onto animal and human characters who escape and resist danger with the help of kind strangers. He typically represents the persecution of the Jews in symbolic images and casts the enemy broadly as ecocide, imprisonment, or war. In his experimental shorts, he combines animation with documentary footage from the Holocaust. His message, however, remains the same: do not forget the human capacity for compassion as well as cruelty.

This essay describes how the cinematic style, form and narrative of Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film Downfall (2004) convey a particular interpretation of history: one that is at odds with the schema of descent signified by its title. For as well as charting the disintegration of Hitler’s Germany, the film is equally concerned with the country’s moral regeneration, exploring and celebrating its capacity for reintegration with social norms. This affirmative counter-narrative rests on specific interpretations of perpetrator testimony and a Darwinian conception of social growth by way of natural cycles of destruction, with a generation of young and morally rehabilitated Germans outliving the weakened and morally decrepit Nazi regime, and specifically the virulence of Hitler. This essay worries about the fact that this view of history is not all that far removed from the pseudo-philosophy of Hitler himself and calls for a more critical and sceptical engagement with perpetrator testimony.

For many years, Israeli culture recoiled from dealing with the Holocaust from a humorous or satirical perspective. The perception was that a humorous approach might threaten the sanctity of its memory, or evoke feelings of disrespect towards the subject and hurt Holocaust survivors' feelings. But, from the 1990s, a new unofficial path of commemoration has been taking shape. Texts that combine the Holocaust with humour, satire, and parody are a major aspect of it, but this remains controversial. Often, Holocaust humour is perceived as part of a dangerous process that normalizes Nazism and Hitler. In opposition to these ideas, author Steir-Livny claims that in Israel, a unique post-traumatic society where the trauma lives as an integral part of the present, Holocaust humour in Hebrew functions as an important defence mechanism. The book argues that Holocaust humour, satire, and parody rebel against the way this trauma affects Israeli society in the present by challenging and deconstructing the fear. Is It Ok to Laugh About It? shows that paradoxically, Holocaust humour also strengthens the dominance of the trauma in the present by inserting it even more into everyday life and popular culture. Thus, Holocaust humour, satire, and parody in Israel are a double-edged sword: on the one hand, they function as an attempt to fight the acting out of the trauma in Israeli society but, on the other, they strengthen certain elements of it. There is a contradictory process of dissociation and assimilation occurring at the same time, which attests to the dominance of the trauma in the Jewish-Israelis' identity. This innovative and intriguing analysis will challenge the borders of Holocaust research and commemoration.

Israeli feature films in the first decades of Israel were dominated by ideological considerations and focused on the importance of establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. As part of this process, Holocaust survivors were reduced to a homogeneous negative entity, broken in body and in spirit that, according to the films, can be changed only in Israel. This paper analyzes the sexual stereotypes of women Holocaust survivors from the 1940s until the present. It shows how from the 1940s-1980s women Holocaust survivors were portrayed through negative sexual stereotypes: they were accused of prostitution in order to survive, and were transformed in the films from indecent Jewish women to virtuous Israeli mothers. The paper argues that even though, from the 1970s, the hold of Zionist ideology gradually began to weaken in Israeli society, the cinematic negative sexual stereotype didn't dissolve but expended. From the 1980s women Holocaust survivors in Israeli feature films don't undergo a change and are represented in the Israeli sphere as seductive & destructive prostitute, Lilith or deviant femme fatale.