DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE ROLE PLAYED by the literary and the aesthetic in the concentration camps have tended to revolve around the dichotomy between transcendence and immanence. This focus has had at least two distinct though not unrelated registers, one centered around the experience of inmates and the other, more general, centered around questions of historical rendition. At one level discussions about literature in the camps make claims about the function of the aesthetic in the psychic life of inmates and more generally about the relevance of the aesthetic realm for people in extreme conditions. Given the abject material constraints and the inhospitable conditions in the camps, the question goes, was it possible for inmates to transcend their physical surroundings through creative endeavors, via the imagination or through culture? In this context faith too counts as a significant example of culture, whether faith is conceived as religious, political, or metaphysical. Were cultural artifacts of use in the inhuman and dehumanizing situations in which inmates found themselves? On this question the memoirs of survivors such as Primo Levi and Jean Améry have given us a range of conflicting answers.