POETRY IN THE HOLOCAUST: GHETTO AND CONCENTRATION CAMP POETRY.
Item
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Title
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POETRY IN THE HOLOCAUST: GHETTO AND CONCENTRATION CAMP POETRY.
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Identifier
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AAI8508683
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identifier
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8508683
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Creator
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AARON, FRIEDA W.
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Contributor
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Daniel Gerould
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | History, Modern
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Abstract
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Literary activity, notably poetry, was vital and widespread in the ghettos, in hiding, among partisans, on the "Aryan" side, and even in some of the concentration camps. Interestingly, the first to react to the German occupation of Poland were the Yiddish and Polish-Jewish poets. Apparently, they knew that they had to provide an existential correlative to the historian's objective chronicling of fact.;Poetry in the Holocaust was, among other things, a vehicle of moral and cultural sustenance and an expression of spiritual defiance that kept the soul of the condemned from dying. The flowering of poetry was an urgent quest for reaffirmation of cultural values, while it was an expression of moral revulsion and rebellion. It was, moreover, an affirmation of life even when the shock sustained by the people produced a crisis of faith. It must be noted, however, that the underlying principle of this writing was the primacy of documentation, for the poets were determined to leave a testament for posterity.;Its literary roots in the tradition of Lamentations, this body of creative writing reveals a spectrum of personal and communal perceptions and responses to the unfolding events. Hence, this poetry unveils not only the most precise correlatives for states of consciousness during the unfolding crisis, but it also bears witness to the underground culture and ingenious support systems without which survival would have been impossible. Moreover, poetry was used as an exhortation to moral conduct as well as a call to armed resistance. Indeed, a slim anthology of poetry was smuggled out on microfilm to England and the United States and used as a call for assistance from abroad.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Comparative Literature
