Minotaur, Morlok, bestia… Obrazy niemieckich żołnierzy w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej o Zagładzie

Abstrakt

The aim of the article is to create a ‘bestiary’ of monstrous German soldiers appearing in Polish Holocaust children’s literature of the 21st century. Body of analyzed works consists of Rutka by Joanna Fabicka, Bezsenność Jutki by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala, and Arka czasu by Marcin Szczygielski, among others. The figures of monstrosity were divided into three groups, as the characters (1) preserve the natural appearance of a man, or exceed the physical norm as being (2) the result of the author’s imagination or (3) references to other cultural texts. The negative and inhuman way of depicting the antagonists raises a certain doubt, caused by the reading of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt - the final part of the article is devoted to the problem expressed in the subtitle of her work.