Open Access Unrestricted online access star

Documentary materials shot during the war by Nazi cameramen came to define the audio-visual memory of Polish Jews in the ghettoes, and Auschwitz-Birkenau liberation footage became a powerful symbol of the Holocaust. Polish documentary filmmakers had relied on these materials in order to present various aspects of the genocide, Nazi atrocities, and the fate of Jews under the occupation. Subsequently, quoting of archival footage lost its appeal and other modes of documentary filmmaking now prevail: cinematic memory work (in response to Alain Resnais's Night and Fog), audio-visual testimony, documentaries of return, etc. The book traces these developments and adopts a comparative perspective, showing Polish productions in the context of a larger international phenomenon of Holocaust cinema. The argument combines insights from psychoanalytical trauma theory, generic criticism, memory studies, and political aesthetics.

Creative Commons Licence cc by-nc-nd cc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

pol

Freely available e-book