"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Theodor Adorno

And to study poetry written after/about Auschwitz is...?

Avelar, Idelber. The Letter of Violence: Essays on Narrative, Ethics and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
"Why study representations of torture if the reality of cruel punishment around the world leaves us with a sour taste of powerlessness? Is it legitimate to speak of torture from the point of view of philosophy, literature and film? Is it valid to speak of a language of torture?" (45)

And...

Lang, Berel. Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
"Why, it has been asked, in light of their claims of historical authenticity, have the writers of novels, dramas, or poetry about the Nazi genocide not more directly chosen to write history itself?" (126)

"Sentimentality or bathos, it has often been pointed out, are persistent failings in many of the novels and poems on the subject of the Nazi genocide. And understandable as the causes may be for the occurrence of such disproportions between feeling and fact where the subject is concerned, the failings are nonetheless accountable, both morally and literally" (145).

But aren't sentiment, feeling and fact all part of that history? And what more accessible place for that than novel, story, drama, poetry, diary, memoir, blog, painting, photograph or sculpture? Reading about torture/oppression/trauma in a narrative or viewing an image can sometimes push us through a mere remembrance into an understanding from which action can result. Colombian artist Fernando Botero's powerful depictions of the treatment of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison give pause (especially when viewed in contrast with his other works) to American viewers, first shocked by the photos themselves that were shown repeatedly on television. In Botero's work the impact is almost greater. We are forced, by someone who is not "from here", to come face to face with something that we did not think our country capable of. Our country is one of the models of fair treatment of prisoners...torture is something other countries do, not U.S.

Obras de Fernando Botero

Erica Jong reacts to the exhibit's showing in our nation's capital.

Can Literature Promote Justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.

"Outside Latin America, testimonio finds close sibling genres in abolitionist testimony and in testimony from the Holocaust, among other literatures of trauma. These genres share with testimonio speakers who are presented as representative of a larger collective, narratives of personal experiences of injustice, and calls for action on the part of readers" (168).

And is the call to action even louder for scholars?