Night of the Living Jews (Noc żywych Żydów)

Abstract

Content and Interpretation Igor Ostachowicz’s novel has caused fierce discussion among scholars of Holocaust literature, just as it has polarised and divided the broader public. This is due in large part to the author’s strategy in presenting the subject, considered by many to be controversial, offensive, and inappropriate. Night of the Living Jews presents the fictional story of a Warsaw resident who becomes entangled in the history of the Holocaust as he is visited by living corpses of Jews exterminated during the war. By the conceit of the novel, they have remained all these years under the rubble and in the cellars of modern-day Warsaw, the inhabitants of an underground city. The story culminates with a scene set in Warsaw’s biggest shopping mall, Arcadia, where the main characters must fight for their lives. In this way, Ostachowicz’s strategy for representing history takes its cues from popular culture, most explicitly from the horror film Night of the Living Dead (1968), but there are also allusions to Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards (2009) (Sobolewska, 2012). The motif of living corpses is thus linked to the notion of Jews who want not so much to avenge themselves (as in Tarantino’s film) as to change their future fate. The ludic aspect of the plot is reinforced by comic portrayals of Jews who cannot find their way in the everyday reality of a world dominated by commercial culture. Gradually, however, they give in to its charms (they go shopping, for instance). The writer does not shy away from the use of slapstick: in one scene, for example, a Jewish boy on a shopping spree loses his hand. The controversy generated by the novel is due primarily to its rejection of the prevailing form of Holocaust memorialisation, which is to say, the serious approach that people are accustomed to. It is this aspect of Ostachowicz’s novel, on its surface, that has elicited reactions of disgust and even outrage. On the other hand, by provoking readers in this way, the novel focuses our attention pre-