Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on literary historical analyses of French- and German-language works and respond to experiences and legacies of the Second World War, and in particular the Holocaust, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and France in the 1960s and 1970s. It offers an analysis of major works by French-language authors deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, and Ravensbruck extermination and concentration camps as a result of their activism with the French Resistance. The book highlights common literary strategies and compares and contrasts diverse responses offered by German-language authors Peter Weiss, Horst Kruger, Gunter Kunert, and Rolf Schneider to collective issues in West and East German discourses of memory. It explores the competing dialogue between fiction and autobiography in Georges Perec's work, and examines H. G. Adler's ironic critique of organized mass tourism.