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Lengyel, Olga : “CAMP OF CAPTIVE WOMEN" [IN] FOR MEN ONLY. NOV. 1959

New York: Newstand Publications, 1959

1st edition of the periodical, and first appearance of this popularized version of the Lengyel’s memoir, originally titled “Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz." Original illustrated paper wrappers, 4to, 82 pages. Lengyel’s memoir here is 4 pages, is heavily illustrated with provocative, sexualized popular-type images, and is the 1st appearance of this “readers digest” version of her famous Holocaust memoir, “Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz” (1947) . In its original form, it is held up as a defining Holocaust memoir, in the same league as Wiesel’s “Night” or Levi’s “If This is a Man – Survival in Auschwitz. ” In her recent scholarly paper, “’Camp of Captive Women’: Sensationalized Holocaust Narratives in US Popular Culture, 1957–65” (and citing this very example in the title) , Dr. Pascale Rachel Bos (U Texas-Austin) takes issue with the dominant view that “high-level” holocaust memoirs, such as Wiesel’s Night or Anne Frank’s Diary, were what shaped mass cultural understanding of the Holocaust in America. She argues instead that these abridged versions of Holocaust memoirs, appearing in literally hundreds of thousands of individual issues of men’s war-story magazines, were what reached the masses of American readers and surely had a far greater effect in shaping mass understandings of the Holocaust in American culture. She cites the astronomically higher distribution numbers of men’s war-story magazines to show how it was these easily-read versions of Holocaust memoirs that reached the American public in large enough numbers to impact the cultural understanding of the Shoah. She points out that, although the images accompanying the short memoirs are absolutely salacious, with scantily clad buxom camp guards or inmates, the stories stay true to the originals and are not the sensationalized exaggerations that one might expect. Was it relevant that the vast majority of the editors of these magazines were themselves Jews? She is not sure, suggesting that the reprinting of abridged stories of war and violence of every genre, abridged from those appearing in the high brow press and accompanies by highly sexualized images, was simply the monthly fare of all these magazines. SUBJECT(S): Adventure stories, American -- Periodicals. Pulp literature, American -- Specimens -- Periodicals. Men -- Periodicals. Men's magazines. Litte´rature de gare ame´ricaine -- Spe´cimens -- Pe´riodiques. Hommes -- Pe´riodiques. Presse masculine. OCLC: 868141350. Very Good Condition. Important. (HOLO2-133-13-E)

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