Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs: A Critical Study

In the life stories of Holocaust survivors, biblical imagery can be invoked to explicate the unexplainable, to make real the unreal. This text examines the role of Genesis in the autobiographies of survivors. Three main concerns converge: the literary nature of Biblical allusion, the contextual history of the Holocaust, and Midrashic considerations that arise from biblical reference. Chapters examine references to Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, the Akeda, Jacob's struggle with the angel, and Cain's murder of Abel.