The Wounds and Pain of the Holocaust in Haim Gouri’s Filmmaking, Poetry and Fiction

Abstract

This article sheds light on the Holocaust-centred oeuvre of the prolific poet, novelist, documentary filmmaker and journalist, who over a rich span of seven decades documented Jewish history’s and Israel’s most painful and tumultuous moments. I offer a reading of several of Gouri’s poems, documentary films, his coverage of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, and focus primarily on his novella The Chocolate Deal, which still today remains one of the most powerful expressions and forays into the damaged psyche of the survivor.