COMIC BOOK DEPICTION OF HOLOCAUST UPSETS JEWS

[esquirecomics]

"Comic book depiction of Holocaust upsets Jews" (By Roger Boyes, Times of London, June 21, 2005)

 

Jewish leaders in Germany are deeply upset by attempts to use comic strips to depict the horrors of Auschwitz. Two new comic books confront young Germans with the most graphic accounts ever of their country's Nazi past. "You think it's just going to be another story," said Andreas Munch, 11, "and then, pow!" German officers are shown screaming at prisoners as they pile up corpses retrieved from the gas chambers. "All this has to be converted into cinders and ashes by the evening!" says the speech bubble in the story Auschwitz by the French artist Pascal Croci.

 

A second comic book, Yossel, by the American artist Joe Kubert, shows a boy being electrocuted as he tries to escape beneath the wires of a concentration camp fence. No concession is made to the sensibilities of the young readers; the dead bodies are portrayed as graphically as if they were the fictional victims of Batman or some other superhero...

 

The fear in the Jewish community is that comic books could end up as collectors' items for far-right activists. Crude anti-Semitic comics already circulate in the neo- Nazi underground in Germany and Italy. Camp commanders depicted as monsters in the comic strips are perversely often attractive to teenagers with ultra-nationalist sympathies...

[drbanner]

I thought it was illegal for people in Germany to "import" comics depicting a Swastika on the cover? I've seen several Timely/Schomburg auctions mentioning this but have never had to deal with the issues myself. Jim?

[SignatureSelect]

Last year the company Antartic Press released the 5 part series Hitler about the life and rise to power of Adolf Hilter and the year before the series SS was released and they weren't complaining then why now. This is a part of our past everybody needs to know about to prevent it from ever happening again. I don't think the literature is pro Anti-Semitic or "White-Power" I think it is the opposite. Infact I was thinking of writing a piece about the Crusades and turning it into a comic with an artist friend of mine. I hope the muslims or the Christians don't shoot me down for exposing all the brutual truth of that. This is history It needs to be exposed so the world will not repeat it's mistakes and we will see the enemy for who and what they were. It is not the comic industries fault if some of these comics fall into the hands of some sick F*cks.

[october]

 

The fear in the Jewish community is that comic books could end up as collectors' items for far-right activists. Crude anti-Semitic comics already circulate in the neo- Nazi underground in Germany and Italy. Camp commanders depicted as monsters in the comic strips are perversely often attractive to teenagers with ultra-nationalist sympathies...

 

What a rediculous argument. When will people learn that demented, violent individuals are going to act according to their nature no matter what? I get so tired of hearing video games, movies and music blamed for tragic events, most often involving teens. Of course we can't put the blame on inadequate parenting, or individual responsibility, or social isolation....it's much more convinient (and a lot less scary) to blame the media.

 

[shrunkenhead]

 

 

What a rediculous argument. When will people learn that demented, violent individuals are going to act according to their nature no matter what? I get so tired of hearing video games, movies and music blamed for tragic events, most often involving teens. Of course we can't put the blame on inadequate parenting, or individual responsibility, or social isolation....it's much more convinient (and a lot less scary) to blame the media.

 

 

October, I'm mostly with you, but maybe not entirely. Trepidation about the "right" and "wrong" ways to present the Holocaust in literature, film, comics, etc, is hardly new...though I'm not familiar with the two comics Mark's post mentioned, I would be interested in seeing them.

 

There was a similar (and in some academic circles, still ongoing) debate about Maus when that achieved popularity. The question that a lot of critics had about was roughly this: Is it "right" to address such a horor in comic book form? Does the presentation cheapen history? While I would disagree, I would certainly respect the opinion of a survivor who thought differently.

 

Discussing/presenting/teaching about the holocaust is a tricky thing. That's not to say it shouldn't be done; quite the contrary. But there should be thought and care on the part of the artist/teacher/whoever.

 

It's a very touchy thing in historical circles to speak for those who can't speak for themselves. We're talking about the deepest levels of human atrocity here...parents who had to watch their children murdered, or vice versa. Massacres, torture, medical experimentation....I can see why a survivor would pick up Kubert's work, get offended and say "what the hell does he think he knows about it?" It's a valid response, I feel, and one that none of us fortunately have any clue about.

 

That's part of the reason that holocaust testimonial has risen to the forefront in recent years. The few survivors we have left aren't going to be around anymore, and it's critical that we get those who wish to be heard the chance to have their story documented and and archived. Yet even interviewing a survivor comes with more rules than I could possibly hope to recount in a post here....I've been a little involved in the process, and it's tough going.

 

Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann made a 9-hour Holocaust documentary called Shoah that directly dealt with these problems of historical representation, what is and what is not appropriate, etc. That film is really worth seeing if you're interested in this kind of historical inquiry...you won't find a single image of an emaciated or tortured camp survivor, yet that film more than any other has really hit the nail on the end when it comes to sincerely documenting the Holocaust.

 

Another work I'd recommend on this topic (i.e. the problems of holocaust represenation) is Michael Rothberg's recent book, Traumautic realism:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...=books&n=507846

[Apotheosis]

I think you missed the part about it being comics IN Germany... not just about the place. Germans are sensitive to their Nazi past. The two series that you mentioned were released here in the US weren't they? Not in Germany? Released here it would hardly make a stir...

[october]

I hear you, and I agree that the Holocaust is obviously a very delicate subject. My objection was limited to the part I quoted above. I take strong issue when censorship is justified by the fact that borderline individuals may be influenced by the work in question. It just smacks of scapegoating and it's FAR too prevalent in our modern culture.

[SignatureSelect]

What do germans not want everyone including their own knowing hitler and the whole Nazi regime was a Crock of Shi+. I think everybody including the germans themselves should Know all about their "Great" history. But then again I think all Neo Nazi should have their brains splattered on the wall. So maybe I am alittle radical my self.

[esquirecomics]

My apologies, the colleague who sent me the story did not send me the entire story. Here is the complete story as it appeared in The Times.

 

************************************************

 

June 21, 2005

 

Comic book depiction of Holocaust upsets Jews

 

From Roger Boyes in Berlin

 

 

JEWISH leaders in Germany are deeply upset by attempts to use comic strips to depict the horrors of Auschwitz.

 

Two new comic books confront young Germans with the most graphic accounts ever of their country’s Nazi past. “You think it’s just going to be another story,” said Andreas Munch, 11, “and then, pow!” German officers are shown screaming at prisoners as they pile up corpses retrieved from the gas chambers. “All this has to be converted into cinders and ashes by the evening!” says the speech bubble in the story Auschwitz by the French artist Pascal Croci.

 

A second comic book, Yossel, by the American artist Joe Kubert, shows a boy being electrocuted as he tries to escape beneath the wires of a concentration camp fence. No concession is made to the sensibilities of the young readers; the dead bodies are portrayed as graphically as if they were the fictional victims of Batman or some other superhero.

 

The cartoon versions of the Holocaust, published this week, are intended to introduce younger Germans to the tragic fate of Jews. The Holocaust is taught at all German schools and visits to a concentration camp are compulsory for older children, but pupils complain that the subject is too drily and too cautiously presented.

 

Now Ehapa, a German firm that also publishes Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, has translated the French and American works to make the subject more accessible.

 

The project has sparked a nervous, sometimes angry response. “A comic strip is not the appropriate form,” said Ezra Cohn, 64, of the Jewish community in Düsseldorf. “The subject is too serious to portray in this way.”

 

Paul Spiegel, 67, chairman of the German Jewish community, said: “We will have to watch very carefully indeed whether this kind of treatment really does address the people it is aimed for.”

 

The fear in the Jewish community is that comic books could end up as collectors’ items for far-right activists. Crude anti-Semitic comics already circulate in the neo- Nazi underground in Germany and Italy. Camp commanders depicted as monsters in the comic strips are perversely often attractive to teenagers with ultra-nationalist sympathies.

 

The first attempt to break the Holocaust comic strip taboo, Maus by Art Spiegelman, tried to get round this problem by drawing Jews as mice, Poles as pigs and Nazis as cats.

 

In the US, Spiegelman won a Pulitzer prize, but in Germany, until the mid-1990s, police were still confiscating posters displaying Spiegelman’s Jewish mouse hero over the Nazi swastika symbol.

 

Croci’s book comes the closest to the conventional comic book form, and as such has attracted the sharpest criticism. “Can you really show the savagery of the Holocaust as a comic?” asked the newspaper Bild. Croci’s argument is that Auschwitz has to be placed in the framework of current politics and be described in a form that leaves little scope for the imagination: it is time, he believes, to be direct with the younger generation.

 

“Growing up, I was repeatedly told, you are too young to understand,” said Croci. The turning point arrived at a Paris exhibition about the deportation of the Jews.

 

“An old woman approached me and I saw that she had a number tattooed on her arm — she was my first eyewitness.”

 

Croci interviewed more than 15 survivors. His story is told through the eyes of the fictional Kazik and Cessia and he complicates the storytelling by blending in scenes from Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. The point is to show that the memory of the Holocaust has become a blend of images, some real, some an imaginative leap .

The test of fire of both books will come this week. If they become bestsellers, they could be introduced into schools. One German state, Thuringia, already uses Art Spiegelman comics to teach history.

[awe4one]

I thought it was illegal for people in Germany to "import" comics depicting a Swastika on the cover? I've seen several Timely/Schomburg auctions mentioning this but have never had to deal with the issues myself. Jim?

 

That's correct...dealers here get around this by covering up the swatiskas on the comic covers. I've sold war comics at shows without covering them up and only had one person point it out to me. I'll also add DC war comics sell very well here. Regardless, it's still illegal.

 

Jim

[ComicBookGuy]

 

Discussing/presenting/teaching about the holocaust is a tricky thing. That's not to say it shouldn't be done; quite the contrary. But there should be thought and care on the part of the artist/teacher/whoever.

 

It's a very touchy thing in historical circles to speak for those who can't speak for themselves. We're talking about the deepest levels of human atrocity here...parents who had to watch their children murdered, or vice versa. Massacres, torture, medical experimentation....I can see why a survivor would pick up Kubert's work, get offended and say "what the hell does he think he knows about it?" It's a valid response, I feel, and one that none of us fortunately have any clue about.

 

That's part of the reason that holocaust testimonial has risen to the forefront in recent years. The few survivors we have left aren't going to be around anymore, and it's critical that we get those who wish to be heard the chance to have their story documented and and archived. Yet even interviewing a survivor comes with more rules than I could possibly hope to recount in a post here....I've been a little involved in the process, and it's tough going.

 

 

Shrunkenhead, these are some very astute observations you have made, and I am in total agreement with you here.

 

I've been involved in teaching about the Holocaust for 14 years now. We are to the point where there are two kinds of Holocaust accounts: the first-hand testimonies and the fictional accounts. Holocaust survivors have every right in the world to make commentary on the fictional accounts, and the commentary they make is vital for maintaining an accurate historical perspective of the events and discourages a cheapening of the entire tragedy. Unfortunately, the world has not learned too many lessons from the Holocaust. Hate and prejudice are still alive and well here in the 21st Century. While many feel that the medium of comic books "cheapens" a legitimate account of the Holocaust, I disagree. To this day, I feel that Maus and Maus II are two of the most poignant and most powerful accounts of the Holocaust. At the same time, however, I respect Holocaust survivors' commentary on those books or others.

 

Joe

[swordsandrockets]

The project has sparked a nervous, sometimes angry response. “A comic strip is not the appropriate form,” said Ezra Cohn, 64, of the Jewish community in Düsseldorf. “The subject is too serious to portray in this way.”

 

Paul Spiegel, 67, chairman of the German Jewish community, said: “We will have to watch very carefully indeed whether this kind of treatment really does address the people it is aimed for.”

 

 

Could this be a matter of a perception that even if the comics are written for a younger audience as it says earlier in the article that they will be juvenile? I have had several folks who I have turned on to Maus over the years that when they first looked at it thought it was a funny animal comic. Not until they really started to read and go through it did they realize that it was a brilliant work of satire.

[comicwiz]

 

Discussing/presenting/teaching about the holocaust is a tricky thing. That's not to say it shouldn't be done; quite the contrary. But there should be thought and care on the part of the artist/teacher/whoever.

 

It's a very touchy thing in historical circles to speak for those who can't speak for themselves. We're talking about the deepest levels of human atrocity here...parents who had to watch their children murdered, or vice versa. Massacres, torture, medical experimentation....I can see why a survivor would pick up Kubert's work, get offended and say "what the hell does he think he knows about it?" It's a valid response, I feel, and one that none of us fortunately have any clue about.

 

That's part of the reason that holocaust testimonial has risen to the forefront in recent years. The few survivors we have left aren't going to be around anymore, and it's critical that we get those who wish to be heard the chance to have their story documented and and archived. Yet even interviewing a survivor comes with more rules than I could possibly hope to recount in a post here....I've been a little involved in the process, and it's tough going.

 

 

Shrunkenhead, these are some very astute observations you have made, and I am in total agreement with you here.

 

I've been involved in teaching about the Holocaust for 14 years now. We are to the point where there are two kinds of Holocaust accounts: the first-hand testimonies and the fictional accounts. Holocaust survivors have every right in the world to make commentary on the fictional accounts, and the commentary they make is vital for maintaining an accurate historical perspective of the events and discourages a cheapening of the entire tragedy. Unfortunately, the world has not learned too many lessons from the Holocaust. Hate and prejudice are still alive and well here in the 21st Century. While many feel that the medium of comic books "cheapens" a legitimate account of the Holocaust, I disagree. To this day, I feel that Maus and Maus II are two of the most poignant and most powerful accounts of the Holocaust. At the same time, however, I respect Holocaust survivors' commentary on those books or others.

 

Joe

 

I am in total agreement on the Maus works - unquestionalby some of the most brilliant work in comics.

 

And at the risk of offending some with my own views on this matter, I would like to add my own observations to what has already been said.

 

In the academic world, there is a stifling school of thought which endorses this notion that the Holocaust is best covered from a Jewish perspective. This distortion in sense of entitlement constantly frowns upon ANY and ALL fictional accounts of the Holocaust.

 

I began reading/learning about the Holocaust when I was 16, and did so mostly through history books, documentaries, and scholarly writings. There is only so much that text books and graphical footage can do to explain the atrocities that occured during one of the most deplorable moments in human history. And in some respect, I can understand how immediate the atrocities of the Holocaust are to the Jewish community because so many Jews were targeted and killed in concentration camps. But does this mean that a non-Jewish fictional account of the Holocaust has no relevance and simply cannot be accurate or remain true to historical fact?

 

I've always been of the belief that we take from history our own lesson, and this can only truly be accomplished by using our own independent thought and imagination. This is not possible when controls on how history ought to be documented and taught are in existence. My own reasons for researching the Holocaust were related to me wanting to learn more about my grandfather who was killed in a Nazi war camp. Family members have suggested that he was killed in a concentration camp, but I have no way of confirming or denying this information due to the severe absence of any Holocaust accounts which touch on the accounts of non-Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps. This probably has more to do with the fact that non-Jewish survivor accounts are so rare and few. However a part of me cannot help but think how much richer and inclusive historical documentation might have been had there been more acceptance for fictional accounts such as Robert Begnini's film Life is Beautiful.

 

And just as fictional accounts such as Begnini's film are discredited in academia, so to do I discredit any stifling views against people sharing their own imagination and perspective on the Holocaust, especially when it excludes information which pertains to the losses of other cultural groups who too became victims of genocide. I can't think of any better way of breaking free from this form of thought and imagination police than by using the comic book medium as a way to share this most important historical account with a new generation of readers. Perhaps when we begin to drop this one-dimensional perspective, and begin to examine the effects the Holocaust has had on all families of all its victims, we may begin to develop a discourse with more depth and meaning, and which can speak to more families of victims, who until now have been left in the dark.

[shrunkenhead]

 

In the academic world, there is a stifling school of thought which endorses this notion that the Holocaust is best covered from a Jewish perspective. This distortion in sense of entitlement constantly frowns upon ANY and ALL fictional accounts of the Holocaust.

 

I don't think this is entirely true. There have been a number of fictional works about the Holocaust that have been well received in academia, some which deliberately conflate fact and fiction, memory and imagination, etc (Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After comes to mind). And for at least a decade now, Maus has had a very strong run in the history and literature departments worldwide.

 

And in some respect, I can understand how immediate the atrocities of the Holocaust are to the Jewish community because so many Jews were targeted and killed in concentration camps. But does this mean that a non-Jewish fictional account of the Holocaust has no relevance and simply cannot be accurate or remain true to historical fact?

 

I think the key phrase here in reference to your understanding is "in some respect." IMO, one of the greatest lessons we can take from the experience of the camps is the understanding that we cannot understand, and will never understand. False senses of identification are dangerous (I'm not saying you're doing this, just making the point). A student of mine, for example, came back from an excursion to Auschwitz saying "now I really understand what it was like for them." That's a major mistake and a wrongheaded way of co-opting an experience of unimaginable suffering, I feel.

 

Perhaps when we begin to drop this one-dimensional perspective, and begin to examine the effects the Holocaust has had on all families of all its victims, we may begin to develop a discourse with more depth and meaning, and which can speak to more families of victims, who until now have been left in the dark.

 

Again, I'm not sure the canvas is as one dimensional as you suggest, but I'm in total agreement with your sentiments.

 

My sincerest condolences regarding your grandfather.

--Tom

[ComicBookGuy]

ComicWiz, sorry to hear about your grandfather.

You make some good points. Often the Holocaust is seen as involving only Jews, when, in fact, it involved mainly Jews. Other victims included political opponents, the elderly, the terminally ill, the mentally handicapped, the insane, gypsies, gays, prisoners of war, and non-Aryans, such as Poles, in general. We also can't forget the 27 million Russians that died as a result of fighting Hitler and the subsequent Stalinist purges. The reason so much information exists on the Jewish victims is because they constituted the largest group and have mobilized themselves politically. In addition, some of the groups I named above are not necessarily groups that have spokespeople, for obvious reasons. I do not feel anybody is stifling fictional accounts or even discouraging non-Jewish accounts of the Holocaust to be heard, but I will emphasize that I feel it's important that survivors do provide commentary on these fictional accounts so we can have a balanced view of the entire event, especially in light of the large number of people who continue to deny that the Holocaust occurred. Whether we agree on the commentaries concerning those fictional accounts is up to us and our own critical judgments. But we need to keep in mind that sometime soon in our lifetimes these commentaries will no longer be available as the last of the survivors pass on. By the way, I'm not sure why you thought your post would offend anyone. I found it very insightful.

Joe