Experience and Expectations: The Dialogic Narrative of Adolescent Holocaust Literature

Experience and Expectations:The Dialogic Narrative of Adolescent Holocaust Literature Michael J. Martin (bio) In My Mother's Voice: Children, Literature, and the Holocaust, Adrienne Kertzer communicates a need for the development of a dialogic Holocaust narrative that embodies the dualistic purpose of adolescent Holocaust literature, a narrative that "simultaneously respects our need for hope and happy endings even as it teaches us a different lesson about history" (75). In the study of adolescent Holocaust literature, this discussion both reiterates a traditional response—that of the need "for hope and happy endings"—and, more importantly, calls for the development of an innovative Holocaust narrative. For the more traditional response, one may look to such an early text as Eric Kimmel's "Confronting the Ovens: The Holocaust and Juvenile Fiction" (1977), where he outlines an existing typology of Holocaust works, arguing that this typology metaphorically forms a series of Dantean rings circling hell. Kimmel defines the four rings/tropes of "juvenile" Holocaust literature as: 1) The Resistance novel, 2) The Refugee novel, 3) The Occupation novel, 4) The Jewish resistance novel, also defined as the heroic (85-9). Whereas each ring attempts to initiate readers into the ineffability of the Holocaust through introducing the frightening social, political, and cultural issues that arose from this event, Kimmel does concede that the texts within the differing rings either avoid raising discussion concerning the confusing circumstances that led to the Final Solution or fail to initiate readers into the darker horrors of the concentration camp experience. As such, Kimmel is aware that the avoidance of the concentration camp novel may be a problem for the development of adolescent Holocaust fiction, [End Page 315] but concludes that such avoidance is a positive in that mass murder is not a suitable topic for children. Acknowledging and yet moving beyond Kimmel's early discussion, Kertzer insists that the contemporary Holocaust narrative must also "teach new lessons," i.e. raise the neglected discussion of mass murder and genocide. Whereas early Holocaust texts refrained from engaging such horrors, to continue to do so "is to embrace a comforting delusion Lawrence L. Langer identifies when he argues that the Western tradition that finds tragic enlightenment in suffering is merely ironic evidence of our inability to understand, and reluctance to confront, what concentration camp life was really like" (Kertzer 63). As Kertzer desires, it would seem that contemporary authors of adolescent Holocaust texts have begun to develop a narrative that works in opposition to the Western tradition of the Enlightenment. As opposed to continuing the suggestion that the Holocaust remains an unsuitable topic or ineffable event, recent texts attempt to move within and beyond this ineffability through disallowing readers a protected space outside of the text. While this new space may be attempted, rarely do such authors successfully complete the task; instead, the reader is typically drawn back to a safe and hopeful narrative space where the text re-subscribes to traditional notions of children's literature. The importance in confronting this delusion of the Western tradition of Enlightenment gains more credence as scholars continue to cling to the belief that Kimmel raised over a quarter of a century ago: that hope and happiness are a needed outcome in children's works. For example, Walter Pape argued in 1992 that since the Romantic period children's works have almost come to be defined by the happy ending, and that such typical endings continue "to be integral to modern children's literature" (190). Responding specifically to adolescent Holocaust literature, Hamida Bosmajian recognizes that Pape's conclusion persists over a decade later: While many stories for adolescents leave no doubt as to the ultimate fate of European Jews, that fate is limited to Jews in general and occurs "off stage," so to speak; it does not happen to the main character of the story who usually emerges at the end with an "I have come through" attitude. Along with the implicit assumption that a comprehensive narrative about the Shoah is impossible, the endings confirm that stories for young readers must have an affirmative, if not happy end, at least in North America. (133-34) However, in recognizing the continuance of this hopeful narrative...