Saints and Martyrs: Popular Maternal Tropes in Holocaust Memoir

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present examination of idealized maternity in Holocaust literature opens by suggesting that Mark Anderson's observation about the disproportionate presence of child victims in popular representations of the Holocaust can be extended to mothers. The perceived vulnerability and innocence of women and children highlight Nazi brutality, placing the Holocaust within a reassuring narrative framework wherein the line between victims and perpetrators is unproblematic. Such a narrative has often been perceived as inappropriately sentimental and as potentially obscuring the complexity of the event. However, the present article demonstrates that in the texts it explores – Olga Lengyel's Five Chimneys (1946) and Isabella Leitner's Fragments of Isabella (1978) – the maternal ideal not only serves to illustrate the horrifying brutality of the Holocaust, but becomes an aid in the retrospective production of meaning in the face of overwhelming trauma. The article construes the deployment of the maternal paragon as a palliative device in Holocaust memoir. It also hints at the wider role motherhood assumes as a textual proxy, which facilitates the confrontation of the more challenging emotional and epistemological issues presented by the Holocaust.