German Women's Life Writing and the Holocaust: Complicity and Gender in the Second World War

In this insightful literary and historical study about female complicity, Elisabeth Krimmer, a veteran when it comes to writing about World War II and about women, analyzes largely unknown women authors' memoirs, diaries, docunovels, and autofiction. According to Krimmer, repetitions, formulaic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFeminist German Studies Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 117 - 119
Main Author Gruber, Julia K
Format Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published Lincoln University of Nebraska Press 01.10.2019
Subjects
Autobiographical literature
Collective memory
Concentration camps
Formulaic language
Gender
German language
Holocaust
Literary criticism
Medical personnel
Nazi era
Nurses
Rape
Refugees
Russian language
Victims of crime
War
Women
World War II
Writing
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Summary:In this insightful literary and historical study about female complicity, Elisabeth Krimmer, a veteran when it comes to writing about World War II and about women, analyzes largely unknown women authors' memoirs, diaries, docunovels, and autofiction. According to Krimmer, repetitions, formulaic expressions, rigid structures, omissions, denial, inconsistencies, non sequiturs, and contradictions, which she locates in an impressive number of mostly noncanonical texts written by army auxiliaries, nurses, refugees who participated in the German flight west from the Russian army, rape victims, and Holocaust survivors make up "the grammar of complicity" (3). By adding her important study to the canon of literary criticism of life writing by women on World War II and the Holocaust, Krimmer has done a superb job at linking collective memory and social solidarity.
ISSN:2578-5206
2578-5192