ABSTRACT
Merely labeling a group as “other” when discussing Holocaust victimhood merely serves to maintain normal/abnormal binary systems, this time creating normal and abnormal Holocaust victims. Normative power structures need examination, all too often missing in theories of tolerance and toleration. Acknowledging how normal/abnormal discourse is formulated
can aid in moving beyond simplistic reactions to difference. In the last chapter, I illustrated how Jewish lives are represented with greater or lesser success as complex and varied. These characters’ grievability is one technique in which vulnerable populations are made recognizable, particularly for young adult readers who often have limited access to diverse populations. Due to the heavy focus on Jewish victims and the sheer numbers of European Jews murdered by the Nazis, their lives are broadly represented. This tendency leaves out important stories, however, that ultimately tell a more complete version of Holocaust history. The terms themselves we use to refer to the Nazi extermination policies focus on the primacy of the Jewish experience. Both Holocaust and Shoah are specically Jewish terms, either coined by Jewish victims or taken from Hebrew. The words place an emphasis on the Jewish experience. However, Jewish lives were not the only lives seen as Lebensunwertes Leben or “life unworthy of life” by the Nazi regime.
