Holocaust as Fiction

Mise-en-scène, Aesthetics and theShoah: The Ambiguous Portrayal of a Female Perpetrator inThe Reader

“…24 Thematically, eroticism, virginity, self-discovery and illiteracy become the terrain of an explosive, yet dubious combination that complicates and obscures Hanna's characterisation. On the contrary, he explains that the most outstanding common characteristic of perpetrators is their normality, not their abnormality; they are extraordinary only in what they have done, not in who they are…In short, the majority of perpetrators of genocide and mass killing are not distinguished by background, personality or previous political This discomforting reality is hard to comprehend and absorb.…”

“…Lighting reinforces this aspect. 30 Michael's rite of passage is not simply reduced to a sexual game whose rules are determined by Hanna. Peeking through the door, Michael -and by extension, the film's audience -is presented with a side view of Hanna pulling up her stockings in a slow motion.…”

“…My lip split and I tasted blood. 38 While Hanna is sitting on a pew, deeply touched by the Gloria in Excelsis Deo sung by the choir, the camera frames the bucolic surroundings for us; the church and its architecture complete this contemplative scene. I was horrorstruck.…”

“…2 Through an exploration of second-generation Germans who came of age after the Holocaust, Schlink proposes another way-metaphorical rather than historical-to look at the legacy of the Holocaust in post-war Germany through the atypical characterisation of a female Nazi perpetrator -Hanna Schmitz -and her erotic and passionate encounters with a 'second-generation' adolescent,Michael Berg. Rejecting a Manichean approach to the Holocaust, Schlink's novel blurs the division between two extremes, victims and perpetrators, thus allowing a 'more nuanced depiction of a perpetrator …over the simplistic, moralising approaches of the past'.…”