The delicate art of Holocaust comedy represents one of contemporary storytelling's most challenging frontiers. Making light of one of history's darkest horrors requires careful navigation, yet a new generation of artists and writers is boldly embracing this approach to process inherited trauma.
The Personal Becomes Universal
Astrid Goldsmith's graphic memoir The Crystal Vase exemplifies this emerging trend. Through her portrayal of grandmother Gisela - a German-Jewish Holocaust survivor with a penchant for dramatic storytelling and unconventional parenting methods - Goldsmith demonstrates how humour can illuminate complex family dynamics.
Meatloaf and Multigenerational Conflict
Goldsmith recounts how her father, at six years old in 1950s Zimbabwe, refused to eat his mother's meatloaf. Gisela responded by serving the increasingly rancid dish at every subsequent meal until he consumed it. Three decades later, Goldsmith herself staged a dinner protest at Gisela's Freiburg table, crawling beneath it to avoid the unappealing German fare.
"She exacted her revenge for the next two decades," Goldsmith writes, describing how her grandmother would repeatedly recount the story in company, embellishing details with each retelling until reaching her dramatic conclusion: "Then she sat under the table for the whole meal ... LIKE A DOG!"
A Cinematic Movement Emerges
This blending of solemn history with irreverent humour has gained cinematic momentum. Jesse Eisenberg's film A Real Pain explores similar territory, with Eisenberg describing the generational dynamic as: "First generation builds the house. Second generation lives in the house. Third generation burns it down."
The film features a particularly telling scene where Kieran Culkin's character Benji persuades his Holocaust tour group to pose playfully at Warsaw monuments, much to his cousin David's discomfort. This tension between reverence and irreverence captures the third-generation experience perfectly.
Companion Works in the Genre
Other recent works continue this exploration:
- Treasure features Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry as a daughter and father visiting Poland, their bickering undercutting solemn moments
- Joe Dunthorne's forthcoming book Children of Radium takes a wry approach to his great-grandfather's complicated history as a Nazi scientist
- Art Spiegelman's groundbreaking Maus faced initial condemnation for its comic approach to Holocaust narrative
The Historical Weight Behind the Humour
Goldsmith's grandmother Gisela escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 at eighteen, after her family home was destroyed during Kristallnacht and her father was taken to Buchenwald. She eventually settled in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, where her passport was confiscated when war broke out, trapping her there for decades.
The family's refugee experience continued when political instability in 1970s Zimbabwe forced them to flee again, returning to Germany and settling in Freiburg - strategically chosen for its proximity to other borders, maintaining their refugee mentality even in retirement.
Inheritance and Eccentricity
After her grandparents' deaths, Goldsmith witnessed how family eccentricities surfaced during the distribution of heirlooms. Her account includes:
- Her aunt prioritising four-course lunches over packing precious items
- Her uncle smuggling family silver across borders in his underwear
- Bringing moth-infested Persian rugs into her pest-phobic sister's house
"Family secrets were uncovered, everyone fought over heirlooms, we all fell out," Goldsmith recalls, explaining why embracing both humour and tragedy felt like the only authentic approach to her family's story.
Why Humour Now?
As the last generation to have direct contact with adult Holocaust survivors, third-generation descendants face unique challenges in preserving and processing these stories. Goldsmith suggests humour serves multiple purposes:
- It provides critical distance from traumatic experiences
- It revives a tradition of self-deprecating Jewish humour largely erased from German culture
- It creates accessibility to difficult narratives
- It acknowledges the full humanity of survivors, including their flaws and eccentricities
"Humour is not a buffer here, but a doorway," Goldsmith concludes. "It allows access to a narrative. The third generation are taking ownership of our family histories, drawing our own conclusions, and making space for the humour of human foibles, even in our darkest stories."
This approach represents a significant evolution in Holocaust storytelling, one that acknowledges tragedy while making room for the complicated, sometimes absurd realities of family dynamics across generations of trauma and survival.
