The Mythisation of the Holocaust
Rybak, K. (2019). Dzieciństwo w labiryncie getta. Recepcja mitu labiryntu w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej o Zagładzie. Wydawnictwa UW.
Abstract
The author of this review article critically discusses the book Dzieciństwo w labiryncie getta. Recepcja mitu labiryntu w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej o Zagładzie [Childhood in the Labyrinth of the Ghetto: Reception of the Labyrinth Myth in Polish Children’s Literature about the Holocaust] by Krzysztof Rybak (2019). She examines the monograph in the context of, inter alia, the research already conducted in the field, literary works, architecture, memorials, the Holocaust victims’, survivors’, and witnesses’ testimonies, as well as in relation to the possible symbolic links of the Shoah and the antiquity. The paper’s conclusion is that children’s literature can hardly prevent the mythisation of the Holocaust, but Rybak’s book proves beyond doubt the perseverance of myth. The banalisation, simplification, and trivialisation of the Shoah, as well as the issues of appropriateness and memory, are also important concepts that frame the author’s reflections presented in this paper.
Keywords
classical reception studies; Holocaust; Krzysztof Rybak; labyrinth; myth; Polish children’s literature
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Pomeranian University in Słupsk Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5342-7268
Katarzyna Jerzak – PhD, Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the Pomeranian University in Słupsk (Poland). Her research interests are literary and artistic representations of exile and peregrination. Contact: katarzyna.jerzak@apsl.edu.pl.
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