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[CCBC-Net] FW: Inauthentic Books about the Holocaust
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From: Linda Silver <silverlr>
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 09:09:39 -0400
I sent this a few days ago but it didn't appear. May have used the wrong URL.
Linda R. Silver, Librarian
Jewish Education Center of Cleveland
2030 S. Taylor Rd.
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
216-371-8288, ext. 128
lsilver at jecc.org
-----Original Message----- From: Linda Silver Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 4:32 PM To: 'cccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu' Subject: Inauthentic Books about the Holocaust
There are several books that fail to deal with the Holocaust honestly. In my opinion, one of them is Erica's Story by Ruth Vander Zee. It coyly skirts the issue that the vast majority of victims were Jews and that the mother throwing her child from the train was in all likelihood Jewish. Then, the stars it uses to decorate the front cover are not Jewish stars. When I was reviewing the book and called the publisher to ask if this was a mistake on the designer's part, the answer was no, non-Jewish stars were intentionally used to "universalize" the subject of the book. But the desperate act of throwing one's child from a train
- a cattle car stuffed with human beings - was NOT a universal experience, it was a specifically Jewish experience and to
"universalize" it is to disparage the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust.
Disparagement of another sort is found in Eve Bunting's One Candle. Aside from some errors regarding Jewish religious practice, the statement is made by one of the characters that Hitler didn't like a lot of people - it wasn't only the Jews. This obscures the intent of Nazi genocide - which was to wipe out the Jews of Europe. And it disparages the awesome scale of the genocide - the sheer number of people killed, the technology of its killing methods, its bureaucracy, its popularity among ordinary Germans, the zeal with which genocide was implemented, etc. It is true that the Nazis murdered Romany people, disabled people, political opponents, homosexuals - but against none of their other targets were the they so systematic and so dedicated.
I don't believe that the Holocaust was a "universal" experience; I believe it was unique. Its lessons can be generalized to other genocidal or near-genocidal event but to equate it with other examples of inhumanity is to deny or dispute the awful truth.
Linda R. Silver, Librarian
Jewish Education Center of Cleveland
2030 S. Taylor Rd.
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
216-371-8288, ext. 128
lsilver at jecc.org
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Received on Thu 04 May 2006 08:09:39 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 09:09:39 -0400
I sent this a few days ago but it didn't appear. May have used the wrong URL.
Linda R. Silver, Librarian
Jewish Education Center of Cleveland
2030 S. Taylor Rd.
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
216-371-8288, ext. 128
lsilver at jecc.org
-----Original Message----- From: Linda Silver Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 4:32 PM To: 'cccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu' Subject: Inauthentic Books about the Holocaust
There are several books that fail to deal with the Holocaust honestly. In my opinion, one of them is Erica's Story by Ruth Vander Zee. It coyly skirts the issue that the vast majority of victims were Jews and that the mother throwing her child from the train was in all likelihood Jewish. Then, the stars it uses to decorate the front cover are not Jewish stars. When I was reviewing the book and called the publisher to ask if this was a mistake on the designer's part, the answer was no, non-Jewish stars were intentionally used to "universalize" the subject of the book. But the desperate act of throwing one's child from a train
- a cattle car stuffed with human beings - was NOT a universal experience, it was a specifically Jewish experience and to
"universalize" it is to disparage the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust.
Disparagement of another sort is found in Eve Bunting's One Candle. Aside from some errors regarding Jewish religious practice, the statement is made by one of the characters that Hitler didn't like a lot of people - it wasn't only the Jews. This obscures the intent of Nazi genocide - which was to wipe out the Jews of Europe. And it disparages the awesome scale of the genocide - the sheer number of people killed, the technology of its killing methods, its bureaucracy, its popularity among ordinary Germans, the zeal with which genocide was implemented, etc. It is true that the Nazis murdered Romany people, disabled people, political opponents, homosexuals - but against none of their other targets were the they so systematic and so dedicated.
I don't believe that the Holocaust was a "universal" experience; I believe it was unique. Its lessons can be generalized to other genocidal or near-genocidal event but to equate it with other examples of inhumanity is to deny or dispute the awful truth.
Linda R. Silver, Librarian
Jewish Education Center of Cleveland
2030 S. Taylor Rd.
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118
216-371-8288, ext. 128
lsilver at jecc.org
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Received on Thu 04 May 2006 08:09:39 AM CDT
