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Put a Nazi in your novel or the danger of trivializing the Holocaust

2021-01-05T23:40:48.846Z


The inexhaustible flow of fictions whose protagonists are real figures of Nazism, victims or perpetrators, opens the debate on their relevance and the dangers of spectacularization


Hairstylist of Auschwitz

,

the tattooist Auschwitz

,

Fiddler Auschwitz

,

the librarian at Auschwitz

,

Pharmacist of Auschwitz

... are only the most obvious examples that readers can find in bookstores a phenomenon that has not stopped growing in recent years to create a particular subgenre: that of fictions based on real characters of Nazism, whether they are victims or perpetrators.

Stella

, by Takis Würger (Salamander);

The Red Ribbon

, by Lucy Adlington (Planet), and

The Unfortunate

, by Ariel Magnus (Seix Barral) are three of the last examples of an inexhaustible flow of novels about Nazism anchored in one way or another in the reality of what happened.

The rigor of the historical approach and the literary quality varies in each case, but it is worth asking: What does this phenomenon respond to?

Is there a risk of trivialization?

Writers, publishers, booksellers and historians analyze the panorama.

Stella Goldschlag handed over other Jews to the Nazi authorities to save her family.

Her case encompasses the entire drama of victims doing whatever it takes to survive, and it throws us essential questions.

Historian Peter Wyden wrote a canonical biography about a dark and complex character, but Würger believed that something was missing and launched himself into fiction.

“We don't know how the real Stella felt.

Wyden doesn't tell about it in his book and she never discussed the matter.

I researched the case for three years and did not find the answers.

If a novel leads readers to be interested in the Holocaust and the victims, I think that it is necessary ", sums up the author of

Stella

when asked about the relevance of his story.

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Sven Hassel's war novels were all the rage in the sixties and are still being republished;

Philip Kerr or Ben Pastor have found a large group of readers with their antiheroes Bernie Gunther and Martin Bora, protagonists of solid crime fiction series set in the Nazi era.

This is different.

Here is a real character the thread that the author pulls to set up the entire fictional building with the obvious risks that led, for example, to the Auschwitz Memorial to discourage reading the novel

The Tattoo Artist of Auschwitz

(Heather Morris, Espasa) for those who would like to understand the reality of the extermination camp.

"If we go to a novel, we seek an approach to a truth that is more emotional than factual, for which we would opt for an academic book or an essay," argues Maria Guitart, international fiction editor at Planeta.

Opportunities in fiction have even been for Hitler's poison taster, Margot Wölk, or for Geli Raubal, the Führer's niece who died under strange circumstances and with whose fate Fabiano Massimi speculates in the novel

The Angel of Munich

(Alfaguara), a good police story built after years of investigation and with unpublished documents.

“It is true that there have been some fiction productions, whether in the field of literature, movies, television series or plays that have given a superficial treatment and that sweeten the drama that millions of people suffered.

Now, I want to think that its social impact in terms of the trivialization of what happened is minimal.

But it is clear that an exercise of criticism —personal and collective— towards these products is necessary, so that they are useful to potential consumers who approach both from ignorance or interest and from empathy towards the victims.

Criticism argued that it has to highlight these products due to their null contribution to the knowledge of what happened or, worse still, to this involuntary sweetening or trivialization ”, assures Juan Manuel Gascón, historian and member of Amical de Mauthausen.

Now, where is the key to business success?

"The curiosity to know in a more playful way the main actors of the story and the events that occurred through a well-documented novel instead of a manual to use" or "the possibility of getting closer to everyday life, to the intrahistory of Nazism ”, are among the reasons that, in the opinion of Alberto Peralta (product manager for adult literature at the Casa del Libro) explain the continuous demand for this type of book.

  • The last years of the architect of the Holocaust

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Precisely, about the life of Adolf Eichmann hidden in Argentina before being captured by the Israelis, Ariel Magnus speaks in his obsessive and chilling

El unfortunado

, one of the best examples of the possibilities of fiction.

"My family history may have also been an advantage in assuming the perspective of a Nazi without concessions, to the extent that in other circumstances I do not know if I would have dared," says the Argentine writer, grandson of an Auschwitz survivor.

The key is, perhaps, not trying to go beyond the novel.

“Eichmann was a person who lied all the time, also to himself, and while a historian would take care to combat those lies, I let him unfold.

Just as I relied on what is known about the real character to create the fictional character, once that fictional character has traveled, I feel it as real, or let's say as real as the one described by Hannah Arendt or Harry Mulisch ”, he says.

A fad driven by anniversaries

In January of this year, the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz led the Planeta publishing house to reissue one of its great world hits,

La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz

(2012), by Antonio Iturbe.

It is the story of Dita Kraus, in the novel Dita Adlerova, a 14-year-old girl who set up a library with eight books in barrack 31 in the field.

Iturbe says that he researched for years and wrote an essay, but that he lacked life, so he asked the protagonist for permission to write what ended up being a solid novel.

"The history books give us figures, maps, data, but they do not say anything about the suffering of people, about the cracks of hope", reflects Iturbe before acknowledging that there is such a fashion and confessing that the title of his novel "Dislike".

“The commercial was convinced that it was a perfect title.

Neither my editor nor I saw it clearly, but we accepted it.

If the title is crude, which it is, the only fault is mine, "he confesses.

"In any case, I don't think writing books trivializes, what trivializes is indifference," he emphasizes.

The need to understand and the interest in aesthetics and in the representation of absolute evil also explain the attraction for this genre.

“I think that the fascination for the Nazis in fiction is difficult to separate from the historical aspect itself.

Curiously, many of these impulses continue to be active in many of the current nationalist projects that promote this fascination ", explains José Luis Cardero, social anthropologist and author of

The Dark Gods of Nazism,

who does see a" purpose to trivialize those horrors of past".

How?

"One way to achieve this", he assures, "would be to promote this type of fiction, far from a historical, social and anthropological analysis of scientific and systematic content such as the one that in many cases is trying to carry out".

Above this sea of ​​novelties and fictions, the voice of Imre Kerstz, Nobel Prize winner in 2002, rises in a conversation with his friend and editor Zoltán Hafner collected in

Dossier K.

(Cliff): “Contrary to others, I have never defined

Sin Destiny

as a 'Holocaust novel', because what they call the Holocaust does not fit in a novel ”.

Source: elparis

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