Chapter 8 Not seeing Auschwitz Memory, generation and representations of the Holocaust in twenty-first century French comics

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We are reaching a point in history when the generation who
experienced the Holocaust as survivors, witnesses or exiles will
soon disappear. What happens to our relationship to such a
momentous event in global history when our living connection
with such a past is broken? To answer this question, this article
will explore recent French representations of the Holocaust
through the comic book. It will approach such representations
from the perspective of the grandchildren of those who were
affected by the Holocaust, perhaps the last generation to have
personal ties to this wartime past. It will focus specifically on
Jérémie Dres’s Nous n’irons pas voir Auschwitz (2011), translated as
We Won’t Go and See Auschwitz. As a “third generation” narrative,
Dres’s work is attentive to stories of Jewish exile and loss to be
found on the margins of Holocaust histories. This perspective
translates into an openness towards transnational histories of the
Holocaust; a recognition of place as a substitute for living memory
and an awareness of comics’ potential to innovate in the
transmission of Holocaust memories. Ultimately, this article will
argue that the contemporary comic book acts as a privileged
vehicle of remembrance, indicative of the reordering of Holocaust
representations in an age of cultural memory.

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