The “Jewish Question” in interwar literature: Irène Némirovsky and Károly Pap

Abstract

Irene Nemirovsky (1903–1942) and Karoly Pap (1897–1945) belong roughly to the same generation, and shared the same fate, dying at a young age in a Nazi concentration camp. Aside from that terrible similarity, many things separated them. But they were both deeply preoccupied with what I am calling the “Jewish question for Jews,” and produced powerful fictional works depicting the individual malaise and the existential dilemmas that characterized the lives of secular or acculturated Jews in Europe in the early twentieth-century. They can both be called “portrayers of conflicted Jewish identity.” I analyze some of their most characteristic works, showing that they shared a highly pessimistic view about the possibilities of Jewish assimilation.