The Crisis of Imagination

During the Holocaust, Jewish diarists wrote in order to create a record of events as they happened. In The Crisis of Imagination, Eryk Tahvonen argues that while these writers made every effort to convey the extent of the suffering they saw, many conspicuously avoided describing perpetrators. By examining how Jewish diarists depicted - and failed to depict - Nazis in their work, and by concentrating on the ways they used language to distance themselves from perpetrators, Tahvonen demonstrates that these writers were engaged in a non-physical, but nevertheless important, form of resistance. He also asserts that the terrifying reality of genocide exceeded the ability of imagination to envision it, and of language to describe it; pointing to a crisis for victims and perpetrators alike in which acknowledging the humanity of the other impeded the ability to live - or to kill. Of interest to general readers as well as specialists in modern European history, Holocaust studies, and comparative genocide, The Crisis of Imagination is a valuable contribution to the cultural and literary history of the Holocaust.