An Estate of Memory Reading Response Prompt Questions

Reading responses are due Thursday 1 April in class or by 5 PM in Avery 475. Choose one of the questions below and answer in an essay of 2-3 pages.

1. S. Lillian Kremer has argued that An Estate of Memory fails to capture the attention of American audiences because "Karmel's tough, unsentimental treatment of victims was at variance with the pathos and redemptive mode many American readers crave in Holocaust writing and film" (35). Do you agree with Kremer that Karmel's narrative structure and focus is difficult for American readers who are used to sentimental portrayals of Oskar Schindler and Anne Frank?

2. An Estate of Memory is a psychological novel that uses interrupted chronology (through the use of extended flashbacks) to recreate the psychological chaos of the concentration camp universe. What other narrative techniques or recurring motifs does Karmel employ to probe the depths of the psychological in the novel?

3. Tola, Barbara, Alinka, and Aurelia develop a bond that transforms over time. How does their relationship change, and what events of the novel illustrate the transformation of their relation to one another?

An Estate of Memory Discussion Questions for Tuesday 30 March

1. On page 234, Tola comes across a group of "old-timers" who were among the original prisoners of the camp, and they relate a legend of a pregnant woman who was not punished when she gave birth in the camp. Tola is conflicted by the legend's possibility, and she fears "what soon might be demanded of her" (235). How do you interpret Tola's apprehension? What moral dilemma does Aurelia Katz's pregnancy indicate to Tola and the others?

2. Flashbacks and interrupted narrative progression are important throughout the novel. In the afterword, Ruth Angress notes that these characteristics are central to the psychological focus of the novel. How do flashbacks and interruptions in chronology and perception relate the characters' psychological progression? How do they reveal the moral dilemmas and importance of human relationships to the four womens' survival?

3. How does the family network the women create develop and change over time through the end of the novel? How does it help the women cope and comfort themselves in the face of extreme degradation?

4. Finally, how is this fiction representation different from and similar to the representations we have read and viewed this semester? Lawrence Langer claimed that representing the Holocaust carries with a burden to which writers of other historically-based fiction are not usually subject. How does Ilona Karmel's novel illustrate this point?

Resources available

For those who emailed me asking about Holocaust multimedia resources, I have a couple that are immediately available to you:

The Holocaust Cantata CD

Voices of the Shoah

If you are interested in one of the above titles (check out the Amazon links for full descriptions), let me know via email and we can set up a time for you to stop by my office.

Have a great weekend.

Online education resources for Option B

Here are a few links to educational resources available online, for those of you currently at work on Option B.

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, courtesy of Florida Center for Instructional Technology: http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/activity/activity.htm

Teresa Moretta's Holocaust lesson plans, courtesy of Remember.org:
http://remember.org/educate/moretta.html

CANDLES Holocaust Museum Education Lesson Plans:
http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/index.php?sid=41

USHMM's excellent teaching resources page:
http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1980/6/80.06.01.x.html

"We Remember the Holocaust" lesson plan from U of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/ylp/96-97/96-97_curriculum_units/Holocaust_KO_Malley/table_contents.html

Shoah Reading Response Prompt Questions

2-3 page reading responses to Shoah will be due Tuesday 9 March in class or in Avery 475 by 5 PM. For all responses, you must use specific examples from the film in your essays, although exact names of interviewed subjects are not required.

Note: Please see the assignment handout distributed in class or download a copy from elearning for proper heading and requirement procedures. Keep in mind that failure to adhere to set guidelines lowers the content grade of your essay.


1. How does Lanzmann utilize silence in Shoah, and what role does it play in representing the experiences of the interviewed subjects featured in the film? How does silence affect your viewing of the film?


2. Lanzmann adamantly denied that Shoah is a documentary, and rather claimed the film is a "fiction of the real." How do you view the film's relationship to documentary as well as to art? How do you interpret Lanzmann's claim that the film is a fiction based in reality?

Shoah Film Discussion Questions

1. There are two very different kinds of silence that dominate Shoah. The silence of the landscape and the silence of interviewed subjects permeate much of the film; how are these two types of silences different? What role do they play and what effects does silence have on your interpretation of the scenes in which silence plays a role?

2. Lanzmann's use of landscape seems to be fundamentally at odds with Resnais' use of landscape in Night and Fog. What important similarities and differences do you see in the depiction of landscape as it relates to the content and/or purposes of the films?

3. Lanzmann does not narrate the action of the film, and instead relies on the interviews to punctuate the action of the film. He has in the past gone so far as to completely reject the use of archived photographs and/or stock footage, noting that if he "had stumbled on a real SS film...that showed how 3,000 Jewish men, women, and children were in gassed...not only would I not have shown it but I would have destroyed it." Alternatively, Resnais' Night and Fog relies almost exclusively on stock footage, photographs and the spoken narration written by Jean Cayrol. What makes these films different in their intent, cinematographic mode, and ultimately, the films' messages?

4. What particular scenes/interviews were particularly striking to you? What was the experience like for you as a viewer, and how did your experience viewing the film differ from other films we have watched this semester?

Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land Reading Response Prompt Questions

Choose one of the following questions to answer in an essay of 2-3 pages:

1. What is the role of maternal relationships in the text? What do maternal relationships reveal about the nature of life in Auschwitz? What are the metaphorical implications of the maternal in Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land?


2. What is the role of language in Auschwitz? How does Nomberg-Przytyk approach the ambiguity of language noted by Holocaust scholars and other writer-survivors?


3. What is the structure of camp hierarchy as represented in the text? How does Nomberg-Przytyk approach camp hierarchy in relation to her experiences?



All reading responses are due Tuesday 23 February in class or by 5 PM in Avery 475, along with all Schindler's List reading responses