See Under: Love is an intricate piece of literature to analyze due to its four different narratives that differ in terms of form and story. The first two stories are connected, as Momik is the protagonist with the first set in 1959 Jerusalem and the second in 1980s Israel. The last two stories are set in a Nazi concentration camp and the city of Danzig during the Second World War respectively. Even though the narratives have different settings and plots they are interconnected by the Holocaust and the war. Moreover, literary form and language are common motifs in all the tales. They are stories about survival particularly Holocaust survivors during the war and years after the war. Their immigration to the new nation of Israel and their subsequent lives in the years to come. Therefore they focus on anti-Semitism during the war and the attitudes of the survivors and Israeli about the Holocaust.
Set almost a decade after World War II the first story follows Momik a child of Holocaust survivors. It focuses on a young child attempting to understand the trauma in the family that is barely addressed in his presence. Momik is curious about the “Nazi Beast” and what transpired where his parents refer to “Over There”. The story combines a child’s innocence and intergenerational trauma that haunt genocide survivors and their offspring thereof. It highlights the difficulty to adjust to their new lives whilst trying to forget the past that still affects them. Through Momik the author addresses the pursuit of understanding trauma and ‘saving’ the victims and in turn inherit the same trauma. Subsequently, Momik seeks a means to find his literary voice to convey the experiences and pain of the survivors.
Accordingly, the second narrative introduces the subject of literary response towards war and violence. Momik is an adult pursuing his literary career while perfecting his voice in addressing his interpretation of violence and the Holocaust. The narrative introduces a fictional version of the Polish Bruno Schulz who interacts with Momik in his journey to perfecting language and form.
The power of literary language is further addressed in Momik/Neuman’s story which follows his great-uncle Wasserman who uses storytelling as a means of survival. The story jumps back to the war period in the Nazi death camps where the narrator accounts Wasserman's experiences. He writes children books that appease the camp’s commander which keeps him from being killed in the camp. The final narrative accounts for the story he comes up with about a child who lived the entire human life in less than 24 hours. The stories are interweaved together as they address violence and trauma and the literary response thereof.
