Holocaust Literature

Holocaust Literature identifies the most important works on the Holocaust, by both first- and second-generation survivors as well as philosophers, novelists, poets, and playwrights reflecting on the Holocaust today. Reviews of the classics of Holocaust literature are arranged alphabetically by title and include histories, biographies, memoirs, diaries, testimonials, eyewitness accounts, philosophy, social criticism, novels, short fiction, poetry, and plays. Included are key works, from Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalm, Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel's Night, and Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower.

Core works of nonfiction--histories, biographies, memoirs, diaries, survivor testimonies, reflections on religion, philosophy, ethics--form two-thirds of the list, joined by literary fiction, poetry, and drama: classics such as Aharon Appelfeld's Badenheim 1939, William Styron's Sophie's Choice, and Yehuda Amichai's Open Closed Open. Also represented are more recent works, such as Joshua Sobol's play Ghetto (1989), Wladyslaw Szpilman's The Pianist (1998), Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography Hitler (completed in 2000), Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial (2004), William T. Vollmann's Europe Central (2005), and Heather Pringle's The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust (2006).