Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures

Analysing the past two decades of literature on Holocaust memory and migration stories, Agnes Mueller engages with writers such as W. G. Sebald, Thomas Bernhard, Edgar Hilsenrath, Benjamin Stein, Mirna Funk, Fred Wander, Barbara Honigmann, Julia Franck, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Olga Grjasnowa, and Kat Kaufmann to explore current debates on Israel, the German Democratic Republic, gender, Jewish and Muslim identity, and antisemitism. Her new readings of German-language texts by younger authors present robust challenges to entrenched ideas concerning the singularity of the Holocaust, multidirectional memory, and a range of other memory debates. Jewish identity and Muslim identity are shown in direct conversation with other migrants' experiences, and literature is revealed to be a brave space where Holocaust memory is newly imagined. Mueller's study invites a radically new way to think about the Holocaust and sheds new and valuable light on adjacent contemporary discourses.

• Uncovers connections between Holocaust memories and migration stories in literature since 2005, revealing moments of empathy, connection, and solidarity between Jewish and Muslim-inflected voices
• Explores contemporary issues in new ways through contextualization of literature, offering new ways of thinking about current politicized and emotionalized debates on Israel and Palestine and the war in Gaza
• Demonstrates the importance of art in accessing Holocaust memory, particularly in a world where live survivor testimony is becoming increasingly unavailable