Abstract
This article tries to defend the position that Holocaust Education can be enriched by appreciating laughter and humor as critical and transformative forces that not only challenge dominant discourses about the Holocaust and its representational limits, but also reclaim humanity, ethics, and difference from new angles and juxtapositions. Edgar Hilsenrath’s novel The Nazi and the Barber is discussed here as an example of literature that departs from representations of Holocaust as celebration of resilience and survival, portraying a world in which lies, hatred and violence are still perpetuated. Because of its transgressive qualities, Hilsenrath’s narrative of the Holocaust as a satire with elements of black comedy can offer pedagogical openings for using laughter to interrupt normative constructions of the Holocaust as an unspeakable and sacred event that lies outside history, and thus beyond the capacities of human understanding. It is argued that laughter is an important modality for inviting deep thinking about the Holocaust, to move it from a transcendent phenomenon to an immanent event, situated clearly in the realm of human action and worthy of understanding so as to prevent it from happening again.
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Notes
It is worthwhile to note that Hilsenrath’s text, which was originally written in German (Der Nazi und der Friseur) but appeared first in English translation in 1971, was turned down by over sixty German publishing houses, before it was finally accepted by a small literary publisher in 1977 (McGlothlin 2007).
Although humor and laughter are often used interchangeably, there is an important distinction between them. According to the classic (phenomenological) study of Helmuth Plessner (1961) on laughing and crying, laughter is understood as a corporeal experience, the phenomenon of bodily reaction that happens automatically without reason. As Vlieghe (2014) explains, an important characteristic of laughter is that “we involuntarily lose ourselves” (p. 150, original emphasis) because of the spasmodic reactions of our body. In contrast to the phenomenon of laughter as a bodily experience, humor refers to the qualities of the comic that elicit laughter and amusement—e.g. oddity, jocularity, comicality, and fun (Rovner 2002).
I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for pushing me to provide clear articulation of this argument from the beginning of the essay.
Ostrower (2015) highlights humor as a defense mechanism in the context of the Holocaust; in particular, she refers to a form of defensive humor, called ‘gallows humor’, as a vehicle for reducing anxiety that accompanies an awareness of death.
Benigni’s film in 1997 was met with much controversy and criticism, as it dared to use humor in portraying the Holocaust. Zizek (1999) categorized Life is Beautiful under “a new sub-genre or at least a new trend: the holocaust comedies.” Its happy ending caused particular criticism; as Santerini (2003) wrote: “Such films, created by generations of artists who have not lived through the Holocaust, represent this history in new forms. The risk is that such symbolic interpretations can distort the magnitude of the tragedy, sometimes even promoting a happy ending to increase dramatic impact” (pp. 226–227).
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Zembylas, M. Holocaust Laughter and Edgar Hilsenrath’s The Nazi and the Barber: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Laughter and Humor in Holocaust Education. Stud Philos Educ 37, 301–313 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9599-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9599-2