Out of all the Holocaust reading I've done, the best (in at least offering some hope) that I've read is Escape from Sobibor, about a (somewhat) successful camp breakout (50 out of 275,000 people sent to the camp survive to VE day). There was a good TV film made from the book starring Alan Arkin and Rutger Hauer.

Saw that film in one of my hs history classes. Maybe 10th? 9th? Teenagers totally in tears heading off to the next class, not knowing what happened next. Oof.

I had classes in uni on both Holocaust literature and literature of Vietnam. (Different universities.) For me the instinct is the opposite, I think - I feel like there's a sort of capital W Witnessing in reading different perspectives on the events.

(I'm using my "I" words, right?"

(Um, also, to clarify: I mean different people's way of processing, handling, even making art from horror - not different perspectives as in "Was there a Holocaust.")

And now I have to say that I'm reading right now The Rape of Nanking which I wasn't going to bring up because mentioning it right now made me feel ooky like you'll think all I'm reading is about stuff like this, like some sort of gorging on tragedy or something. But for a variety of reasons what happened in Nanking is largely forgotten, to the extent it's ever been known.

IIRC, the movie ends with the breakout, and doesn't go into (other than a blurb before the credits) what happened to everyone after they made it to the woods (if they made it, instead of running over one of the land mines). One of the saddest things in the book (to me) is what happened to Leon Feldhelder (played by Alan Arkin in the movie)--he survived in hiding until the Soviets liberated that part of Poland, but when he returned to his hometown, along with the few other camp survivors from that town, they were massacred in a pogram before VE day.

A slightly more uplifting (well, revengeful) tale is of Schlomo, the young jewelrymaker who joined the partisans after escape, and then moved to Brazil after the war. When he found out in the news that one of the head SS guards from the camp had been in hiding also in Brazil and was being held for extradition around 1960, he visited him in prison and made sure that they had the right guy. They did, and then let him go (corruption and connections), but he was mysteriously killed soon after release. The author asked Schlomo about that incident, and he had nothing to say about it but definitely hinted that he might have had a hand in the death.

This'll probably be hamhanded, but:

brenda, I get it and suspect I am like you. The Witnessing thing was a HUGE part of my upbringing. I don't know how that's informed my ability to pursue this kind of lit, but it is a strong tradition I was raised with. I also get how it's hard to say "this is important to me to read" without it sounding like, well, gorging. It isn't that. It just feels necessary. As I was listing those books, I was thinking "man, sounds like I'm reading this stuff because I get some sort of emotional high or low off this or some sort of woo-woo cred, and it isn't that. It's that it makes me angry and sorrowful and it matters, damnit. If I don't know I'm lesser (not to say that others aren't. Just me. Double standards and all that.)" I'm a huge student of history, in all its ugliness.

That said, I'm terrified of reading Nanking. I've read enough reviews, heard interviews with the author and it will be really hard.

For me the instinct is the opposite, I think - I feel like there's a sort of capital W Witnessing in reading different perspectives on the events.

Me too, brenda. I occasionally will pull out the Holocaust Chronicles massive-tome that I got from the bargain section of Waldenbooks (also available now at B&N) and re-read it for just that reason. It's extremely informative, and can be very depressing, of course.

I've seen The Rape of Nanking at the bookstore, and looked at the (horrific) photos. I do intend to read it eventually to learn the details. (Sadly, Iris Chang committed suicide a few years ago.)

Oh jesus, Kathy. I did not know that. Ugh.

It's slow going - I'm reading a bit at a time and putting it down.

Huh. Wonder if that's why I've been mainlining romance novels recently - keeping a balance of sorts?

Huh. Wonder if that's why I've been mainlining romance novels recently - keeping a balance of sorts?

Romance novels are not the balance to Holocaust literature, I'm pretty sure. Maybe Wodehouse.

No, Wodehouse would occupy my brain too much, rather than lulling it to sleep.

Garrison Keillor?