No. 2 (2016): Narrations of the Shoah 2016, no. 2: The Topoi of the Shoah

This issue puts forward a series of articles focusing on the tropes of the Shoah and includes contributions of Jagoda Budzik, Sławomir Buryła, Justyna Kowalska-Leder, Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Koschany, Marta Tomczok, and Paweł Wolski. These authors consider the topos of the Shoah with regard to its theory and modern impact, present it as a critical tool capable of analysing both literary personal accounts and popular culture in a subtle way, and indicate the recent increase in number and diversity of the tropes of the Shoah (visible not only in Polish literature, but also in literature in Hebrew). Moreover, they postulate the necessity for writing a dictionary of the tropes of the Shoah and suggest how an entry to such a collection should look like. We proudly publish the first Polish translation of an article by Bracha L. Ettinger, a renowned psychoanalyst and descendant of Polish survivors (“Transcryptum: Memory Tracing In/For/With the Other”; a critical introduction by Anna Kisiel). What the reader of this issue might find interesting as well are the important texts either verifying or reconsidering the connections between the Shoah and Zofia Nałkowska’s Medallions (Arkadiusz Morawiec), and Stanisław Lem’s A Memoir Found in a Bathtub (Agnieszka Gajewska). Finally, this issue includes Anita Jarzyna’s important article which focuses on children’s and young adults literature devoted to the Shoah, which has recently gained in popularity, and discusses the role of animals.