Ein ‚antislowakischer' Oscar-Film? Zur Darstellung des Holocaust im tschechoslowakischen Film Obchod na korze

S:I.M.O.N. Issues

S:I.M.O.N. Sections

Editorial

S:I.M.O.N. is an e-journal of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI). It appears twice a year in English and German language. S:I.M.O.N. aims at both a transnational and comparative history of the Holocaust and Jewish Studies in Central and Eastern Europe within the broader contexts of the European history of the 20th and 21st century, including its prehistory, consequences and legacies as well as the history of memory.

S:I.M.O.N. serves as a forum for discussion of various methodological approaches. The journal especially wishes to strengthen the exchange between researchers from different scientific communities and to integrate both the Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust into the different “national” narratives. It also lays a special emphasis on memory studies and the analysis of politics of memory. S:I.M.O.N. uses a double-blind review system, which means that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed from each other hroughout the review process.

Shoah: The journal deals with the history of the Shoah from multidisciplinary, transnational and comparative perspectives. It seeks to integrate studies on Jews as well as on other groups of victims of the Holocaust, especially on Roma, and of so far less researched regions of (East) Central and (South) Eastern Europe.

Intervention. The journal reports on research projects and their transmission into public events. It also informs about current educational and remembrance programs.

Methods. The journal serves as a forum for the discussion of methodological approaches as, for instance, the everyday history, oral history, gender history, the history of violence, anti-Semitism and racism and the theory of memory and memory politics.

DocumentatiON. The journal contributes to critical approaches on using and interpreting archival materials in the 21st century.

Download the current issue S:I.M.O.N. 2017/2.

Articles

Eva Waibel

„Es ist noch nicht vorbei, wir bleiben deutsch und treu“. Nationalsozialismus und Postnazismus in der Fernsehkabarettsendung 'Das Zeitventil'

The Austrian television cabaret show Das Zeitventil was produced from 1963 to 1968 by the national Austrian Broadcasting Company under the artistic direction of the cabaret artist and musician Gerhard Bronner. The show saw itself as a decidedly political cabaret and expressed in numerous sketches and chansons its critique on current political events and social developments. In different contexts it also dealt with the issues antisemitism, National Socialism and the Holocaust in post-Nazi Austrian society, which was very progressive and unusual during this period of time in Austria. With reference to current socio-political events and media debates taboo subjects of the Second Republic were portrayed with the means of satire and parody: the failed denazification after 1945 and the consequent continuing effects of a widespread antisemitic Nazi ideology in Austria. The comedians parodied politicians who advocated for the amnesty and the concerns of former Nazis, caricatured German national and antisemitic individuals and organizations, themed the failed denazification and debunked antisemitic resentments and trivialisations of the Holocaust. However, the focus of the cabaret was, as selected examples will show, less on a confrontation with Nazi crimes, in particular the mass murder of the European Jews, but rather in demonstrating personnel continuities of former Nazis and their unwavering Nazi sentiments.

SWL-Reader

Robert Jan van Pelt

Auschwitz, Holocaust-Denial, and the Irving Trial

Since the 1970s, Holocaust deniers have focused their attention especially on the issue of crematoria in Auschwitz, thinking that questioning the existence of these would enable them to deny the Holocaust itself. The Holocaust deniers' attacks against the evidence of the Auschwitz crematoria reached a dramatic apex during the infamous London court case David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt in the year 2000. Court-ordered expert Robert Jan van Pelt defended his 700 page report under cross examination for five days – the outcome was pathetic for David Irving.

The Dutch architectural historian's lecture in English focused on the background and developments of this historical court case.

Events

Zoltán Halasi

Duschehubka

This text is the penultimate chapter of Zoltán Halasi's book Út az üres éghez (Road to an Empty Sky). With this work, which was first published in Hungarian, the author created a singular memorial to Polish-Jewish culture and its destruction. Setting out from the Yiddish Holocaust poem Dos lid funm ojsgehargetn jidischen folk by Itzhak Katzenelson, Halasi records what was lost in the Shoah in the course of nineteen compelling chapters. He takes on the grab of an art historian, a literary critic and a travel guide when he reports about a wooden synagogue and the Jewish quarter in Warsaw. In the role of a German banker, he illuminates the aims of the Nazi monetary policies, as a writer of SS brochures he highlights the absurdity of racism. Depicting a Selektion in the Warsaw ghetto, he shows the grim logic of compulsive acts in catastrophic situations, draws an image of the running of the extermination camp Treblinka. The cynical words of two German policemen provide an insight into the rituals of mass executions and introduce us to the craft of murder. The final chapter is an interplay of slithers of narrative by Jewish children on the run and by those who helped and hid them that borders on the unbearable.
The chapter reproduced on the following pages has three parts: Part one is a Treblinka railway station master's report to the Polish Home Army. In the second part, a former Jewish detainee who managed to escape from the extermination camp Treblinka gives a literary treatment of his arrival at the camp. The final part consists of an inner monologue by the Treblinka extermination camp's director of administration.

The book will shortly be published in Polish at the Nisza publishing company in Warsaw. The German-speaking public was first presented with the work on December 1, 2015 at the Simon Wiesenthal Conference 2015. The German translation by Éva Zádor and Heinrich Eisterer is in progress.

During the clerical-fascist Slovak State, "Tóno" Brtko, a docile and poor carpenter, is offered the possibility to 'aryanise' the small Main Street sewing accessories shop of Rozália Lautmannová. Torn between his good-natured principles and his greedy wife Evelyna, he finally agrees to take over the shop by making the deaf and senile lady believe he is her nephew arriving to help her out. Yet he then discovers that the business is bankrupt, and Ms. Lautmannová is only relying on donations from the Jewish community. While letting his wife believe he is making money from the shop, he gradually becomes a supporter of the old lady. More and more, a cordial relationship between the two evolves. When the Slovak authorities finally decide to deport the Jewish population of the small town, Tóno, in a deep conflict with himself and his values, finally opts for hiding Ms. Lautmannová – a decision which turns into tragedy. Obchod na korze won the 'Oscar' for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966. The film was presented on the occasion of a VWI-Visuals presentation on 29 January 2015 in Vienna's Admiralkino.