GRGR(5) Katje and the Nazis

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:

> Doug schrieb:
> > I could have also brought into my
> > post of yesterday the major role that the Oven plays in this episode
> > featuring Katje, Blicero, Gottfried -- is it really necessary to point out
> > what an obvious reference this Oven is to Nazi atrocities, in a novel which
> > takes as its setting WWII and which specifically focuses on the Nazis?
> 
> Yes, it is (- or better: would be) necessary, because in the fairy tale of 
> Haensel & Gretel, which obviously is the primary reference of this episode, the 
> Oven plays the same major role. I tried to hint at this. 

Not sure I see what Kai is saying. Is it that the oven in the fairy tale
is explicitly a bakeoven and therefore the image would not particularly
point to crematorium. In this regard I might note that (as Weisenburger
points out) P's rendering of German at a crucial  point is "Der
Kinderofen" rather than "Der Backofen" presumably to emphasize the
cannibalistic changing of the young people into something good to eat. One
might speculate that if P had wanted to ease transition from bakeoven to
crematorium he could have simply said "Der Ofen." Be that as it may I'd
also say that it would be utterly impossible for an American of any age
upon coming across a passage in a book that contains cruelty, WWII
Germany, and the word "oven" in any but the most prosaic sense NOT TO
immediately think HOLOCAUST. Even WITHOUT the word "oven." The historic
event has received and continues to receive so much attention. So where
does that leave us. Given the place of THE Holocaust in the popular mind,
in America at least, would anyone agree that discussion of whether GR is
making frequent references to The Holocaust is problematic at best?


				P.