Holocaust victims remembered at book launch

The Wellington Holocaust Research and Education Centre recently hosted the launch of a book edited by Senior Italian lecturer Marco Sonzogni that analyses visual representations of the Holocaust.

This Way. Covering/Uncovering Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Wellington: Dunmore Publishing) uses the short stories of concentration camp survivor Tadeusz Borowski to explore the relationship between verbal and visual representations of war and genocide through critical analyses of book covers selected from an international competition for a new cover of This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, which was published in 1959, is a collection of short stories by Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski, inspired by the author's concentration camp experience.

Dr Sonzogni says the new book, which is lavishly illustrated, includes an extensive critical apparatus: foreword, introduction, academic essays, commentaries on the book covers, afterword, and notes.

"Authors and advisors include noted authorities on the Holocaust, Holocaust literature and Holocaust representation," he says.

Special guests at the book launch included Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Hon. Christopher Finlayson, and young members of the New Zealand Jewish community whose comments are recorded in the book.

Photo: Photography by Woolf

This Way. Covering/Uncovering Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen is available in New Zealand on the website of the publisher Dunmore at http://dunmore.circlesoft.net/.