When representing the Holocaust, the slightest hint of narrative embellishment
strikes contemporary audiences as somehow a violation against those who suffered
under the Nazis. This anxiety is, at least in part, rooted in Theodor Adorno's
dictum that "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." And despite the fact
that he later reversed his position, the conservative opposition to all
"artistic" representations of the Holocaust remains powerful, leading to the
insistent demand that it be represented, "as it really was."
And yet, whether it's the girl in the red dress or a German soldier belting out
Bach on a piano during the purge of the ghetto in