About the Revolutions of “Planet Auschwitz”. Marian Pankowskiʼs Lecture on Anti-Martyrological Literature

The following paper is a multifaceted interpretation of Marian Pankowskiʼs camp literature. The author compares Pankowskiʼs work to that of Tadeusz Borowski and Imre Kertész, and stresses its anti-martyrological character. Typical is its analysis of the moral consequences of the camp experience, and especially the issue of the moral degradation of the victim. The characteristic feature of the analysed works by Pankowski is the tendency to cross the line between the accepted and the taboo. The most striking example of this propensity is the combination of stories about the camp life with a narration of erotic imagination. This is visible, for example, in the story ‘Moja SS Rottenführer Johanna’ (‘My SS Rottenführer Johanna’), which describes an affair between a Polish inmate and a German female SS-officer. This is one of many examples of the way in which Pankowski transgresses the convention of camp literature.