Bio, workshop information and readings for Dr. Maron’s workshop

Jeremy Maron is the curator of Holocaust and genocide content at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. He has been with the CMHR since 2011, and oversees content in three of the museum’s permanent galleries – Examining the Holocaust, Turning Points for Humanity and Breaking the Silence. He also curated Points of View: A National Human Rights Photography Exhibition (2017), and holds a PhD in Cultural Mediations from Carleton University, where his dissertation focused on the treatment of the Holocaust in Canadian cinema. Dr. Maron has published in a number of journals, most recently in CineAction on the films of Canadian Holocaust survivor Jack Kuper (Issue 100, May 2020, http://cineaction.ca/current/the-barrier-in-experience-the-holocaust-films-of-canadian-survivor-jack-kuper/). He also co-edited the collection Stages of Reality: Theatricality in Cinema (2012), to which he contributed a chapter on Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful.

Life is Beautiful: A moderated discussion on unconventional Holocaust representation

“Our problem thus appears to center on intangible but nevertheless perceived boundaries. The dilemma we are identifying is not one of gross transgression (the denial of the Holocaust, for instance). The intractable criterion seems to be a kind of uneasiness. The problem is neither narrowly scientific nor blatantly ideological: one cannot define exactly what is wrong with a certain representation of events, but…one senses when some interpretation or representation is wrong.”

  • Saul Friedlander, “Introduction,” Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the “Final Solution” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 3-4.

This session will take the form of a moderated discussion on unconventional methods of Holocaust representation, adopting Roberto Benigni’s “Holocaust fantasy” Life is Beautiful as a starting point.

The discussion will ask participants their thoughts on what they think are particularly effective approaches towards Holocaust representation, as well as approaches that they think are less effective or even inappropriate, and why this is so.  Can less conventional forms of representation offer different or unique insights into the Holocaust than more traditional historical narrative examinations? Does the Holocaust demand or obligate those that are creating representations to adopt particular strategies or forms?  How do we sense when a Holocaust representation “works” or “does not work”, or is “appropriate” or “inappropriate”?

Participants are asked to view Life is Beautiful beforehand (which they must locate on their own) as well as read two short articles on Benigni’s film (which will be provided to participants in advance of the discussion) – one by Holocaust survivor Imre Kertész, who argues in favour of the film’s fabulist and comedic portrayal, and the other by film critic Linda Holt, who takes a more critical lens towards Benigni’s representational approach to the Shoah.

Kertesz – Who Owns Auschwitz

Holt – If all this were nothing but a joke

Additional reading and viewing