Planet Auschwitz explores the diverse ways in which the Holocaust influences and shapes science fiction and horror film and television by focusing on notable contributions from the last fifty years. The supernatural and extraterrestrial are rich and complex spaces with which to examine important Holocaust themes - trauma, guilt, grief, ideological fervor and perversion, industrialized killing, and the dangerous afterlife of Nazism after World War II. Planet Auschwitz explores why the Holocaust continues to set the standard for horror in the modern era and asks if the Holocaust is imaginable here on Earth, at least by those who perpetrated it, why not in a galaxy far, far away?  The pervasive use of Holocaust imagery and plotlines in horror and science fiction reflects both our preoccupation with its enduring trauma and our persistent need to “work through” its many legacies.

Planet Auschwitz website (https://planetauschwitz.com)
 

Brian E. Crim is professor of history at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, and author of Our Germans: Project Paperclip and the National Security State and Antisemitism in the German Military Community and the Jewish Response, 1914-1938.

— Karen A. Ritzenhoff, Co-editor of New Perspectives on the War Film

— Jonathan C. Friedman, author of The History of Genocide in Cinema: Atrocities on Screen

— Times Higher Education

— Central European History

— Oren Baruch Stier, author of Holocaust Icons: Symbolizing the Shoah in History and Memory

— New Books Network - New Books in German Studies

— University of Lynchburg

— Journal of Popular Culture Review

— Gavriel Rosenfeld, author of Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past Is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture

— SFRA Review

— Science Fiction Film and Television