Imágenes del Holocausto. Análisis de la zona gris y su representación en el cine contemporáneo

Abstract

In his memoirs as an Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi developed the concept of grey zone to explain the different ways in which the Nazi regime led its Jewish enemy to a process of self-destruction by diffusing the line between victim and executioner. In the aftermath of Auschwitz, this concept quickly spread beyond the limits of the camp and promptly became a necessary piece for the understanding of what happened during the Holocaust, above all due to the accuracy of a concept, grey zone, that still interact with the present. Seventy-five years after the Second World War finished, cinema is one key actor in the preservation of the debate on the Holocaust thanks to the strength of its images. Recent different films on this subject evidence the importance of remembering what happened then so that the memory of the Jewish genocide could be maintained, especially when the survivors are fewer. In this sense, the aim of this article is to study how that concept of grey area developed by Levi –and its different contemporary interpretations– is manifested in today’s cinema, in order to understand the importance of the term and how it has been potentially nourishing a new ethics and aesthetics.