Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs

In the life stories of Holocaust survivors, biblical imagery can be invoked to explicate the unexplainable, to make real the unreal. This text examines the role of Genesis in the autobiographies of survivors. Three main concerns converge: the literary nature of Biblical allusion, the contextual history of the Holocaust, and Midrashic considerations that arise from biblical reference.
Chapters examine references to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, the Akeda, Jacob’s struggle with the angel, and Cain’s murder of Abel.

Deborah Lee Prescott holds a Ph.D in English and has done graduate work in both cinema and theology. She is an associate professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Deborah Lee Prescott
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 204
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2010
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4817-3
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5787-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vi

Preface      1

Introduction: Genesis and Genocide—The Holocaust, Autobiography, and Midrash      5

1. Paradise Lost, Innocence Lost      31

2. God’s Ark and Hitler’s Cattle Car      51

3. The Babel of Extermination      79

4. Akeda: The Perversity of Silence      100

5. Israel in Auschwitz: A Malediction Forbidding Mourning      131

6. Fratricide      166

Epilogue      181

Bibliography      185

Index      193