La Shoah dans la littérature de jeunesse en langue allemande

This article summarizes the ongoing discussion of the depictions of the Holocaust in West German children’s literature. The literature professors Malte Darendorf from Hamburg and Zohar Shavit from Tel Aviv started the academic debate in the late 1980s. Darendorf defends the novels in question, which were published after the early 1960s, arguing that they were an attempt to broach a sensitive and difficult topic. However, Shavit accuses these German authors of completely misrepresenting historical facts to future generations. She notes that rather than describe the horror of the persecution and murder of European Jews, these books focus on the suffering and victimization of the Germans. This article explains Shavit’s main points of criticism, which were long contested in Germany but which now enjoy a broad consensus. Her critique is exemplified by Hans Peter Richter’s well-known book, Damals war es Friedrich, which is often read in German classrooms. Lastly, Miriam Pressler’s novel, Die Zeit der schlafenden Hunde, convincingly shows that there are other ways to write about the Holocaust in children’s literature

Art · Art history · Criticism · German · German Literature · Humanities · Literature · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · The Holocaust · Theology · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · German History and Society · History · Law · Literature and Cultural Memory · Philosophy