the main characters - usually a female prisoner and a male (prisoner or SS-man). The plot of the story is the emotions that appear between them, love, or a dangerous game, lined with fascination and eroticism, in which a woman's life is at stake. The annihilation going on behind their backs, if at all outlined in a way that is noticeable to the reader, only serves as a background. The mass crime that occurs in the background is of no importance as long as it does not become a real threat to the main characters. All that matters is their fate and survival. The subconscious desire for a happy ending that accompanies the reader, which novels constructed in such a way generally aim to achieve, is obscured by the fact that in the face of the Holocaust and the more than one million victims of Auschwitz, there is and cannot be a happy ending.
It seems that the sudden spill of books with "Auschwitz" in their title (or plot) - alleged biographies and novels supposedly based on facts - which is noticeable not only on the Polish publishing market, is a response to the growing interest in this issue in relation to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of the war. It can be assumed that contemporary authors, inspired by this particular "fashion" for Auschwitz, decided to fill the gap that arose with the passing away of witnesses to history and the lack of new memoirs of their authorship.
The analysis of selected novels created in this trend leads to several observations. First of all, contrary to what the authors try to prove in most examples, these books should be treated only as literary fiction. The multitude of factual errors they contain, simplified interpretations and explanations, as well as factual unreliability make them of little cognitive value.
Secondly, the trend has already become visible in literature in other fields of art, namely the pop-culture of Auschwitz. Its characteristic features are the previously mentioned: sexuality, relativisation, gruesomeness, isaurisation and banalisation of the history of Auschwitz. In terms of content, pop-culturalisation manifests itself in the adaptation of a narrative to the expectations of
the recipients, trivialisation of the depicted world, translation of the camp reality and actions of the protagonists based on a black-and-white scheme, as well as the simplification of even the most complex phenomena, use of simplified, and therefore inadequate and erroneous explanations. The mediocrity (or even simplicity) at the linguistic and literary level is accompanied by a noticeable lack of consistency and logic of disquisition in some places, as well as editorial negligence and factual unreliability.
The story, set in the reality of a concentration camp, is supposed to engross, move and shock the reader. The symbol of Auschwitz is used instrumentally in this trend as a way to arouse the reader's interest. Some of the authors declare that their aim is to present some element of the history of the camp and commemorate it. Meanwhile, the content of these books, which testifies to little understanding and only fragmentary knowledge, indicates that the facts and preservation of authenticity are of secondary, if not marginal relevance. This literature trivialises and distorts history, and additionally dehumanises and offends the victims, using their suffering exclusively as a set design for kitschy love stories.