Good against Evil? H. G. Adler, T. W. Adorno and the Representation of the Holocaust
Although H. G. Adler wrote extensively on the Holocaust, his voice has been excluded from the discussion of the Holocaust following Adorno's pessimistic analysis. The reasons for this exclusion lie in Adler's aesthetics, ethics, & method, examined here based on his biography, his works, the Adorno-Adler correspondence, & the way in which scholars treat other voices in their books on the topic. Against Adorno's fallacy of negativism, Adler argued for the sovereignty of ethical values, human rights, & democracy. His poetry during his time in the concentration camps shifted to an inner perspective & a protest against inhumanity. His method in examining the Holocaust -- scholarly documentation, an objective style, intellectual analysis, & an ethical viewpoint -- was highly unfashionable in British & American sociology at the time. Adler's novels Eine Reise ([A Journey] 1962), Panorama (1968) & Die unsichtbare Wand ([The Invisible Wall] 1989), all representing Auschwitz but with complementary methods, are discussed. M. Pflum