Admitting the Holocaust by Lawrence L. Langer is a collection of essays
about the Holocaust and how it is perceived in literature by our culture.
Langer explores oral testimonies, diaries and fiction that consider the
devastation of the Holocaust a central theme. He takes a look at human
values in the light of that devastation. He exhibits the concern between
literature and testimony. His hope is that the Holocaust experience will not
be sentimentalized in the various forms of literature and media. Langer wants
the Holocaust to be presented as "it really was -- evil."
Throughout his book Langer makes reference to various other writers
novels and articles about the death camps. He criticizes such authors as
William Styron and Bernard Malamud. According to Langer ("Beyond
Theodicy: Jewish Victims and the Holocaust" and "Malamud's Jews and
the Holocaust Experience,"), "too many historical and cultural
representations of the Nazis' murderers try, by portraying the Jewish victims
as dignified martyrs, to introduce the notion of spiritual redemption into the
accounts of atrocities that need to be confronted without moral
oversimplification." He rejects the works of Malamud who found in
suffering "a source or spiritual strength, a moral advantage."In the essays
"A Tainted Legacy: Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto" and "Ghetto
Chronicles: Life at the Brink" Langer criticizes accounts that present
heroism, suffering and religious experience as a central theme. He writes:
"Jews were destroyed by humans, not God ... in a historical, not religious,
moment of suffering ... whether they chose or not, men died for nothing."
He finds it unimaginable that any sane person could write, "It is a great
privilege to have been chosen to bear this." (Etty Hi...