Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book discusses contemporary reconsideration of the place people allot time and history in hectic, horror-struck, postmodern world. In a Lefebvrian sense, space is socially constructed, and sites of Nazi atrocity are a particularly apt example. The book focuses on the ways in which the implications and connotations of these spaces have changed over time. In the preface to his influential The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination, Lawrence Langer describes the "disparity between expectation and reality" that he perceived during his first visit to Auschwitz in 1964. "Auschwitz" is not simply a geographical location on a map but, more fundamentally, it operates as a metonym for suffering, violence, and persecution under the National Socialists during World War II. Focusing on film and literature, the book offers articles that (re)consider the moral validity of artistic engagement with the Holocaust.