The End of the Holocaust - Softcover

Rosenfeld, Alvin H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253011973 ISBN 13: 9780253011978

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2013

Synopsis

In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank's story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of "the end of the Holocaust" in public consciousness.

About this title

About the Author

Alvin H. Rosenfeld holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington. He is author of A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature and Imagining Hitler, and editor of Thinking about the Holocaust: After Half a Century and Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives.

Review

"Alvin Rosenfeld... has performed an invaluable service for the cause of memory and historical accuracy.... While simultaneously documenting the mutilation inflicted on the history of the Shoah by contemporary culture and politics, he eloquently argues for the specificity of the Holocaust and its continuing impact on survivor writers."

(Modern Judaism)

"This remarkable new work of scholarship―written in accessible language and not in obscure academese―is exactly the Holocaust book the world needs now. Indeed, it could not have been written before now because it is about now and how the specificity of the Nazis' gruesome, unprecedented and nearly sucessful genocide against Europe's Jews is being lost today, turned into mushy metaphor, unplugged from its historical roots. April 16, 2011"

(Bill's 'Faith Matters' Weblog)

"Alvin Rosenfeld's The End of the Holocaust is a uniquely important work by one of the founding figures in the field of Holocaust literary studies."

(Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas)

"Alvin Rosenfeld has written an important book that deserves a wide audience, not only to help us maintain a clear picture of our troubled past, in order to come to terms with its historical reality―but indeed to help us avoid a future that will bring back the darkness and the fog. 7/11/2011"

(new-compass.net)

"For showing us how to remember the Holocaust, and how to recognize many of the ways in which its memory is being killed, we owe Alvin Rosenfeld a debt of immense gratitude."

(Wilson Quarterly)

"Although Holocaust denial threatens to undermine the record of Nazi Germany's criminal legacy, Rosenfeld persuasively argues that other forces are inadvertently as dangerous."

(Jack Fischel Hadassah Magazine)

"Rosenfeld is never shrill and often eloquent. But his book, now the indispensable study of its subject, cannot be read with pleasure, even by people who believe that 'in the destruction of the wicked, there is joy.'June, 2011"

(Scholars for Peace in the Middle East)

"This book fills the reader with gloom and rage, in nearly equal measure. The heart sinks, the mind reels, in contemplating the variegated assaults on Holocaust memory that Alvin Rosenfeld describes, analyzes, and seeks to throw back. Vol. 16, Issue 35"

(The Weekly Standard)

"The End of the Holocaust is a model of critical intelligence, restrained in its judgments, never shrill or accusatory in its disagreements, always illuminating in its insights into the motives and achievements of the major Holocaust writers Rosenfeld discusses. June 15, 2011"

(Forward)

"The End of the Holocaust is a work of historical research and scholarship. It is certainly a major contribution to our understanding of the relationship of history to society, which is after all the historian's task. The End of the Holocaust is an intelligently structured argument against current tendencies to relativize or negate the significance of the Nazi project of Jewish extermination."

(H-German)

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0253011973
• ISBN 13: 9780253011978
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 328