My beloved German-Jewish grandmother Gisela was not an affable person. She enjoyed laughing at her own jokes, revelling in the misfortunes of others, and telling people off. If an event combined opportunities for all three activities, so much the better.
As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, author Astrid Goldsmith found herself reflecting on how her family history affected her, and how that history was being presented in contemporary media. This exploration is at the heart of her graphic memoir, The Crystal Vase, and resonates with a recent trend in entertainment: a willingness to find humor alongside the tragedy of the Holocaust.
Goldsmith recalls a childhood incident involving a refusal to eat meatloaf, a story her grandmother repeatedly recounted, embellishing it with each telling. This anecdote, while seemingly trivial, highlights a pattern of gleeful humiliation tactics and self-aggrandizing storytelling that shaped Goldsmith’s understanding of her grandmother. It also foreshadows a larger cultural shift in how the Holocaust is being remembered and represented.
This shift is evident in films like A Real Pain, directed by Jesse Eisenberg, and Treasure, starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry. Both films employ comedy to explore the complexities of grief, memory, and intergenerational trauma. Eisenberg, in a recent interview, described this approach as a way to “burn down the house” built by the first and second generations, acknowledging a need for a new, more irreverent perspective.
The use of humor isn’t meant to diminish the gravity of the Holocaust, but rather to acknowledge the full spectrum of human experience, even in the face of unimaginable horror. As Goldsmith notes, it’s a way to access the narrative, to make the stories relatable and engaging for a contemporary audience. This approach is also seen in Joe Dunthorne’s 2025 book, Children of Radium, which uses wry humor to examine the complicated legacy of a German-Jewish scientist who developed chemical weapons for the Nazis.
This trend isn’t without precedent. Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, initially faced criticism for its unconventional format and perceived lack of reverence. However, it ultimately became a landmark work, demonstrating the power of comics to address difficult and sensitive subjects. The centuries-old tradition of self-deprecating Jewish humor, suppressed during the Holocaust, is now being reclaimed as a means of survival and resilience.
Goldsmith’s grandmother, Gisela, escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 and eventually settled in Zimbabwe and then Freiburg, Germany. Her story, like those of many other survivors, is one of displacement, loss, and endurance. Goldsmith’s decision to embrace humor in her retelling of Gisela’s life reflects a broader generational shift, a willingness to grapple with the past in all its complexity, and to find moments of levity even in the darkest of times.
On , Ynetnews reported on Joseph Bau, a Holocaust survivor who used art and humor to sustain himself and others during the war. Bau, born in Krakow in 1920, utilized his artistic skills to forge documents and create moments of laughter within the concentration camps. He married fellow prisoner Rebecca in a Nazi camp and miraculously found her again after the war. His story is now being told in a new film and preserved at the Joseph Bau Museum in Tel Aviv.
Bau’s experience underscores the importance of humor as a survival mechanism, a sentiment echoed by Ferne Pearlstein in her 2017 documentary, The Last Laugh. The film explores how comedians and survivors have used humor to cope with trauma and challenge taboos. As one survivor noted, laughter sustained the will to press on.
On , the impulse to find humor in tragedy continues to shape how stories of the Holocaust are being told. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a recognition that even in the face of unimaginable horror, there is still room for laughter, defiance, and hope.
