Search -
Art Out of Agony: The Holocaust Theme in Literature
Art Out of Agony The Holocaust Theme in Literature Author:Stephen Lewis At the end of the Second World War, when allied troops liberated the Nazi death camps, journalists and photographers came to document the horrors of the most highly organized genocide in history. Yet after the first stories and pictures shocked readers around the world, there was a strange silence. — Today, half the world's population was bor... more »n since 1945. This generation is starting to ask how their parents and their countries could let the Holocaust happen. How could the world not have known the truth about the camps? Philosophers, artists, novelists and film-makers of the pre- and post-War generations are exploring the Holocaust in order to discover what perverse element of human nature could conceive of and carry out such an obscenity.
In a series of interviews originally prepared for CBC-FM's Stereo Morning, Stephen Lewis explores artistic and philosophical responses to the Holocaust with some of the people who have brought this historical conundrum to public awareness during the last few years. In conversations with the artists, and through excerpts from their written works, Lewis examines diverse attitudes and motivations, from the mass appeal of Sophie's Choice and The White Hotel to philosophical and moral contemplations of survivors.