Question

Sonia Weitz has been called “a survivor with a poet’s eye.” How can poetry deepen one’s study of the Holocaust? What can we learn from poetry that more traditional historical accounts might not capture?

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

Poetry can give us the personal and emotional account of the tragedy in human history that the Holocaust was. Some events like Holocaust have a major impact not only in a historical sense but also on the sentimental and artistic one, leaving a huge impact in the emotional sense.

Both victims and survivors went through a great tragedy which some explored through poetry, as did Sonia Weitz. We can, therefore, see what feelings, senses, and thoughts were going on in the brains of the individuals, opening up a more deep side of the historic event. With this, we can also dive into a more philosophical perception of the Holocaust, questioning the reasons, causes, and actions of it all.

This is also how the poetry, in general, can teach us more about the historical events than simply mare accounts of the socio-cultural changes through time. Through the art of the common civilians, we see what their emotions and thoughts were, how it was to personally live through it all and how the feelings affected the art, and vice-versa.

Historical accounts are usually talking mostly about the important leaders and political figures, but art, such as poetry, can leave us important documentation about how common folks lived through the events and what their impact was.