The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture

As those who remember the personal trauma of the Nazi invasion and genocide are increasingly few, the only remaining traces of human suffering lie in objects that reify that suffering. Ordinary objects of Holocaust victims can reflect individual martyrdom, and Shallcross (Slavic languages and literature, Univ. of Chicago) looks at this in her meticulous, novel analysis of the writings of Zuzanna Ginczanka, Wladyslaw Szlengel, Elzbieta Nalkowska, CzeslawMilosz, Jerzy Andrzejewski, and Tadeusz Borowski. Applying Heidegger's notions of temporality and objective existence and Derrida's, Freud's, Lucan's, and Todorov's concepts of morality, the author tenderly elevates the ordinary objects-e.g., a penknife fabricated by a camp prisoner-pointing out how cradling such objects, in the face of deadly danger, gave hope to the dying of 'bearing witness... both on their behalf and against the perpetrators.' Here, as aptly as she has in her previous work, Shallcross looks at depictions of the depths of suffering through the 'dispossession' of belongings when a prisoner entered a concentration camp. This is a brilliant analysis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. -Choice