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Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death: Reflections on Memory and Imagination by Otto Dov Kulka
March 2013
Evan McMurry
nonfiction
One day there will be no more books like Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Otto Dov Kulka, sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau at nine, is among the youngest of the Holocaust survivors, just old enough at the time to have the facility of observation, yet still sharp enough to recall it in crisp, precise prose. That his investigation of memory -- Kulka stops short of the word memoir -- almost never happened underscores the value of its existence, and the rapidly expiring window for more documents like it.
A respected professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Kulka has written copiously about the Holocaust, but always from the disinterested promontory of the historian. He so segregated his personal experiences from his studies of their circumstances that when he informs a colleague he's visiting Auschwitz, the friend recommends the camp's prime spots, never stopping to think that Kulka might know its stone contours from the inside.
For an historian, the bog of memory is a methodological torture; Kulka deplores the irony of doling out history in tidy narratives to others when he can make so little sense of his own role in it. Yet as a Holocaust survivor, Kulka is left "alienated" by the historical renderings of the event. He avoids Holocaust museums even when researching in their adjoining libraries, has never watched Shoah, and leaves a lecture on Auschwitz feeling as if the speaker was speaking a separate language. Trapped in interdisciplinary purgatory, one day Kulka wanders away from the tour: while his conference-mates schlep off to tourist destinations in Poland, he returns to Auschwitz-Birkenau to undertake a dissertation on his own trauma.
More: http://www.bookslut.com/nonfiction/2013_03_019936.php
Evan McMurry
nonfiction
One day there will be no more books like Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Otto Dov Kulka, sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau at nine, is among the youngest of the Holocaust survivors, just old enough at the time to have the facility of observation, yet still sharp enough to recall it in crisp, precise prose. That his investigation of memory -- Kulka stops short of the word memoir -- almost never happened underscores the value of its existence, and the rapidly expiring window for more documents like it.
A respected professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Kulka has written copiously about the Holocaust, but always from the disinterested promontory of the historian. He so segregated his personal experiences from his studies of their circumstances that when he informs a colleague he's visiting Auschwitz, the friend recommends the camp's prime spots, never stopping to think that Kulka might know its stone contours from the inside.
For an historian, the bog of memory is a methodological torture; Kulka deplores the irony of doling out history in tidy narratives to others when he can make so little sense of his own role in it. Yet as a Holocaust survivor, Kulka is left "alienated" by the historical renderings of the event. He avoids Holocaust museums even when researching in their adjoining libraries, has never watched Shoah, and leaves a lecture on Auschwitz feeling as if the speaker was speaking a separate language. Trapped in interdisciplinary purgatory, one day Kulka wanders away from the tour: while his conference-mates schlep off to tourist destinations in Poland, he returns to Auschwitz-Birkenau to undertake a dissertation on his own trauma.
More: http://www.bookslut.com/nonfiction/2013_03_019936.php
My cousin is the reviewer. We're very proud of him.
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