Jews and Gentiles in Borowski's Concentration universe The 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 camps. Borowski's descriptions of the spaces and functions of the camps, which he portrays as a dystopic projection of XX 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' pariahs - in the concentration camps.

Ebrei e non ebrei nell'universo concentrazionario di Tadeusz Borowski

Giovanna Tomassucci
Primo
2019-01-01

Abstract

Jews and Gentiles in Borowski's Concentration universe The 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 camps. Borowski's descriptions of the spaces and functions of the camps, which he portrays as a dystopic projection of XX 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' pariahs - in the concentration camps.
2019
Tomassucci, Giovanna
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/993626
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