Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski (1922-1951) was a political prisoner detained in several Nazi extermination camps (Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Dautmergen, Dachau-Allach) from the spring of 1943 to May 1945. Soon after his liberation, he wrote several tales, short stories and poems, in which he described Warsaw during its ferocious Nazi occupation as well as the day-to-day life in the extermination camps. Borowski’s descriptions of their spaces and functions, which he portrays as a dystopic projection of twentieth century Fordist-capitalist society, set him apart from other Holocaust witnesses and writers. To give the reader a picture of this enormous economic, sociological and psychological experiment, Borowski allows his main character and narrator Tadzio to access the emblematic places of the Auschwitz-Birkenau “metropolis”. As a result, even the narrator and the other prisoners appear dystopically shaped by the annihilating system in which they live. My paper analyzes the narrative mechanisms which describe the image of Jews – the Nazi Caste system’s pariahs – in the extermination camps.
Jews and Gentiles in Borowski’s Concentration universe
Tomassucci Giovanna
Primo
2021-01-01
Abstract
Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski (1922-1951) was a political prisoner detained in several Nazi extermination camps (Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Dautmergen, Dachau-Allach) from the spring of 1943 to May 1945. Soon after his liberation, he wrote several tales, short stories and poems, in which he described Warsaw during its ferocious Nazi occupation as well as the day-to-day life in the extermination camps. Borowski’s descriptions of their spaces and functions, which he portrays as a dystopic projection of twentieth century Fordist-capitalist society, set him apart from other Holocaust witnesses and writers. To give the reader a picture of this enormous economic, sociological and psychological experiment, Borowski allows his main character and narrator Tadzio to access the emblematic places of the Auschwitz-Birkenau “metropolis”. As a result, even the narrator and the other prisoners appear dystopically shaped by the annihilating system in which they live. My paper analyzes the narrative mechanisms which describe the image of Jews – the Nazi Caste system’s pariahs – in the extermination camps.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
