Literature of the Holocaust

Alan Rosen was a research fellow of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah from 2006 to 2009 and now lectures regularly on Holocaust Literature at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies and other Holocaust study centers. Rosen is the author of Approaches to Teaching Wiesel's Night (2007), Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism and the Problem of English (2008) and The Wonder of their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder (2010).

'Literature of the Holocaust is an important work. More than an anthology, it is a comprehensive collection of significant essays by distinguished authors, who provide both an overview and deep insights into Holocaust literature in the major languages of the West ordinarily inaccessible to the English reading world … Moreover, it grapples with major issues in Holocaust literature, such as the use of testimony and song, and the use and misuse of history. Each essay provides a rich survey and entry point for the study of Holocaust literature. I thought I knew Holocaust literature well, yet this work has given me years of important reading ahead, for which I am grateful. Comprehensive, consistently excellent, clear and yet also concise … a disquieting work as any good work on the Holocaust must be. It is a work to be cherished.' Michael Berenbaum, American Jewish University, Los Angeles

• Introduction Alan Rosen; Part I. Wartime Victim Writing: 1. Wartime victim writing in Eastern Europe David G. Roskies; 2. Wartime victim writing in Western Europe David Patterson; Part II. Postwar Responses: 3. The Holocaust and Italian literature Robert S. C. Gordon; 4. German literature and the Holocaust Stuart Taberner; 5. Hebrew literature of the Holocaust Sheila E. Jelen; 6. The Holocaust and postwar Yiddish literature Jan Schwarz; 7. The Holocaust in Russian literature Leona Toker; 8. The Holocaust in English language literatures S. Lillian Kremer; 9. Polish literature on the Holocaust Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska; 10. Hungarian Holocaust literature Rita Horváth; 11. French literature and the Holocaust Jeffrey Mehlman; Part III. Other Approaches: 12. Oral memoir and the Shoah Alessandro Portelli; 13. Songs of the Holocaust Shirli Gilbert; 14. Sephardic literary responses to the Holocaust Judith Roumani; 15. Anthologizing the Holocaust Alan Rosen; 16. The Historian's Anvil, the Novelist's Crucible Eric J. Sundquist.