Preempting the Holocaust

Lawrence L. Langer here explores the use of Holocaust themes in literature, memoirs, film, and painting, examining the work of such authors as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Cynthia Ozick, Art Spiegelman, and Simon Wiesenthal, and appraising the art of Samuel Bak, the "Holocaust Project" by Judy Chicago, and the Yiddish film Undzere Kinder, made in Poland after the war.

Amy E. Schwartz

[Langer's] objection...is to the drawing of connections from the Holocaust to other matters....all efforts to find "meaning" of anykind in the Holocaust are intrinsically suspect and reductive, even questions about how we would act in similar circumstances.....[I]t is almost a relief, late in the book, to find Langer...drawing his own meaning... —WQ: The Wilson Quarterly