2.4.1 The Bildungsroman, part 1

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The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry

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University of California, Santa Cruz

The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry

130 notes

The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry is an adaptation of an on-campus course that has been co-taught by Murray Baumgarten, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature (Literature Department), and Peter Kenez, Professor Emeritus (History Department), for over 20 years at UC Santa Cruz. In this course, you will explore the Holocaust from the overlapping perspectives of literature and history—through memoirs, historical documents, poetry, documentary footage, filmic representations, and novels. You will expand your knowledge of the literature of the Holocaust, Eastern and Western European Jewish communities, the origins and development of antisemitism, the establishment of labor and extermination camps, resistance movements, and the Holocaust as a problem for world history. There is more than one way to take this course: You can complete all of the activities (and earn a Verified Certificate) or only the activities that are most interesting to you. Whatever you choose to do, we encourage you to find a havruta (a study partner) in your community or in the Coursera community so that you can experience the course in a more interactive and meaningful way.

À partir de la leçon

Prelude to the Holocaust

In this module Profs. Baumgarten and Kenez discuss the changing demographics and political landscape of early 20th century Eastern Europe, Jewish identity, the Bildungsroman, Silvano Arieti’s The Parnas, Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, Aharon Appelfeld’s Badenheim 1939, and Elie Wiesel’s Night.

2.4.1 The Bildungsroman, part 17:45

2.4.2 The Bildungsroman, part 218:35

2.4.3 The Bildungsroman, part 320:24

2.4.4 The Bildungsroman, part 412:01

Rencontrer les enseignants

Murray Baumgarten
Distinguished Professor of English & Comparative Literature
Literature
Peter Kenez
Professor Emeritus
History

I want today, as my outline suggests, to talk about Elie Wiesel.

I want to talk about Sylvano Arieti, and I want to talk also about Primo Levi and

this is, in a sense, a way of going forward and

also referencing and talking about the earlier books we've read.

I don't think I'll have many examples from Dry Tears, but

I hope some of them will come to mind for you as I talk.

But what I want to talk about is what a Bildungsroman,

the coming of age story that I've talked about before,

the story of initiation means as we read these texts.

And in some ways, all of these texts have that personal point of view

and that personal point of view comes forward in terms of

the character in the book named Primo Levi.

Or named Elie Wiesel, or named Sylvano Arieti, but

also comes forward as the narrator, and

often they are the same, although sometimes they split

when the narrator talks about himself in the third person.

But, the narrator and one of the things that happens is the narrator,

Is somebody with whom, because many of these have

a narrator who tells us he was in that situation.

He's not a historian writing about something that happened to someone else.

But he was in the situation, so it's personal,

and he speaks in the I did this, and I did that.

One of the effects of such narration

is that the reader becomes I.

Right.

The reader, psychologically speaking,

identifies with what is being narrated.

It's happening to Murray, to Peter, to Rebecca,

to Josh, to all of us as we read it.

And we see this right away with Wiesel in his personal account

when he talks about his friendship with Moshe the Beadle and

Beadle is an institutional word for

someone who takes care of a church.

So I've called him [COUGH] Moshe the Shamas, the Yiddish word

from the Hebrew word, someone who takes care of the synagogue.

And Wiesel's personal relationship with Moshe the Shamist,

extends from the fact that Moshe is going to initiate

him into the mysteries of the Kabbalah.

Which is the great mystical Jewish tradition, especially when

he's 12 years old and his father has said, you have to have studied for

30 years before you really are allowed to study the Kabbalah.

But Elie Wiesel is a pious kid and he wants to know,

and Moshe the Shama says to him, why do you cry when you pray?

And out of that discussion,

you may remember that line right from the beginning.

And I'm a great believer in at least knowing the beginning and the ending,

because, like so much in life, beginnings matter, and that's why Peter and

I dressed up for this class, so that you would take us seriously.

We would all come and wear, well anyway, beginnings.

So Moshe the Shamas teaches Elie Wiesel stuff

about the mystical tradition why we cry.

And Moshe and Elie Wiesel have these discussions about how

life is about asking the right questions of God and that our experience and

our suffering are about learning how to ask the right questions.

And maybe not even expecting answers, but the right questions.

And you'll remember in the narrated story,

Moshe the Shamas goes away and then he comes back and he tells

the people of his community of Seagat that Peter has talked about in Transylvania.

What the Nazis are up to and no one believes him,

including Elie Wiesel, who says,

everybody thought Moshe the Shamas was crazy.

Because nobody could imagine that the Germans,

the Nazis, those members of the most

advanced European civilization.

And that meant the most advanced civilization to that time,

could want to kill a whole people.

No one believes him, and there's a line in there, I won't find it right now,

where Elie Wiesel says, so I listened to Mosha the Shamas and I pity him.

And of course, one of the things we know is that Elie Wiesel will have

to experience personally what Moshe the Shamas is telling him.

And that is exactly our problem, but

in what way can we experience what they're

telling us about, what these narrators are.

And as Peter says, none of us, luckily,

has had to experience these terrible situations

that these characters are all in that these narrators are talking about.

And it's in Primo Levi, forgive me for not capitalizing Levi.

I finished this early this morning.

For whatever reason, I didn't capitalize his last name.

Here is Kein Varom.

You'll remember he's in Auschwitz, he's thirsty.

He grabs an icicle and it's knocked out of his hand.

And he asks the guard, Warum?

Why.

And he's told, there is no why here.

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