The ‘Games’ People Play Raising and Responding to Holocaust Consciousness in Jewish-American Short Stories since 2000: Raising and Responding to Holocaust Consciousness in Jewish-American Short Stories since 2000

Holocaust-themed content has become a mainstay in Jewish American literature. This should come as no surprise since the Holocaust has, according to historian Peter Novick, become the “the central symbol of Jewish identity” since the 1990s. While his argument has been criticized, there can be no doubt that the ‘Holocaust industry’ is alive and well in the United States and around the world. Each year, new works of fiction, non-fiction, films, and museum exhibits materialize. As an increasing number of Holocaust survivors pass away, the fear of forgetting the Holocaust coupled with concern about Jewish assimilation have led writers, scholars, rabbis, and educators to raise many familiar questions anew: What does the Holocaust mean for the identity of second and third generation survivors as well as for those Jewish Americans not directly touched by the Holocaust? How can the memory and legacy of the Holocaust and its survivors best be preserved and most effectively conveyed to new generations? In my paper, I will attempt to answer these questions as far as they pertain to Ellen Umansky’s “How to Make it to the Promised Land” (2007) and Nathan Englander’s “What We talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (2013). In both of these short stories, characters engage in “what if” scenarios by ‘playing’ Holocaust games that take an unexpected twist.