Perpetrators in Holocaust Narratives

"Joanne Pettitt's book is an excellent and highly original contribution to the newly established field of perpetrator studies, in which she takes the innovative approach of tracing textual and ethical patterns in more than 60 primary sources. These range from fiction by such novelists as Edgar Hilsenrath, David Grossman and Jodi Picoult, to fi ctional versions of the fi gure of Adolf Hitler, and analyses of the memoirs of perpetrators themselves, including the autobiography of Rudolf Hoss. By this means, Dr Pettitt carefully draws out signifi cant elements of these texts' designs on the reader and the narrative strategies they must adopt in order to represent such a problematic topic." (Prof Sue Vice, University of Sheffield, UK)

Making use of in excess of sixty primary sources, this work explores fictional accounts of Holocaust perpetration as well as Nazi memoirs. It will be of interest to anyone working in the broad areas of Holocaust literature and/or perpetrator studies.
This study provides a comprehensive analysis of representations of Holocaust perpetrators in literature. Such texts, often rather controversially, seek to undo the myth of pure evil that surrounds the Holocaust and to reconstruct the perpetrator in more human (“banal”) terms. Following this line of thought, protagonists frequently place emphasis on the contextual or situational factors that led up to the genocide. A significant consequence of this is the impact that it has on the reader, who is thereby drawn into the narrative as a potential perpetrator who could, in similar circumstances, have acted in similar ways. The tensions that this creates, especially in relation to the construction of empathy, constitutes a major focus of this work. Making use of in excess of sixty primary sources, this work explores fictional accounts of Holocaust perpetration as well as Nazi memoirs. It will be of interest to anyone working in the broad areas of Holocaust literature and/or perpetrator studies.