Hildreth-Mirza Hall, 101/102 - Great Room

Created in the Image?: Holocaust Perpetrators in Israeli Fiction Book Launch Lecture by Prof. Or Rogovin, Modern Hebrew Studies Program The perpetrators of the Holocaust—Nazis, Germans, and their collaborators—have occupied the popular imagination since the end of World War II. We see them everywhere in film and fiction. But how should they be portrayed? As cartoonish characters in leather jackets? As educated, well-dressed, and soft-spoken Nazis? As SS officers in black uniforms screaming orders in German with trains and chimneys in the background? This artistic dilemma is crucial for Israeli fiction that is written exclusively from the victim's perspective. Drawing on an extensive study of Israeli writing and its sociocultural context, Prof. Or Rogovin offers a pioneering analysis of how the representation of Holocaust perpetrators in this fiction, published between the 1940s and the 2000s, has developed from flat characters, likened to beast and demons, to full-fledged individuals, humanized as much as their victims.

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