12. Fantasy and the Holocaust: Suspending Belief to Grasp the Unbelievable

Abstract

This paper endeavors to explore how recent media has engaged with the memory of the Holocaust, and, more broadly, how fiction and technologies have found new and effective ways to engage with controversial histories. I propose specifically, fiction, fantasy, and magical realism are innovative ways of keeping memory of atrocities in history, such as the Holocaust, alive. I examine the genre of fiction and magical realism, while bringing particular examples from Yoram Gross’ animated series Sarah and the Squirrel, Jonathan Safran Foer’s film Everything is Illuminated, and Luc Bernard’s upcoming video game Imagination is the Only Escape. These three are all vastly different medias, but share very common motivations: to engage with history, principally the Holocaust, through imaginative and interactive story telling. Each also treat the subject of representation and memory, concluding that “reality” is diverse, fragmented, and ever changing through time and people. Through the fantastical, their stories lead spectators with a child-like perspective through experiences that transfer meaning, feelings, and affect, rather than facts. As survivors continue to pass away and time and distance puts the unbelievable events of the Holocaust in the far inaccessible past, the new generation endeavors to find immersive, interactive medium to continue to keep memory –what Alison Landsberg refers to as “prosthetic” or artificial memory –alive. While unconventional, the works listed above demonstrate that fantasy and magical realism can be an engaging, informative, and worthwhile form to engage with history, especially histories of violence.