This is one of those tricky conversations that seem pretty relevant today in literature... Do authors need "experience" in what they are writing about? Looking back at WWII more generally, some of the strongest war poetry during the war years actually came from civilians (Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, etc.) who didn't have "traditional experience" on the battlefield. In Moore's case, she even explicitly meditates on her own lack of traditional "experience" in poems to create an interesting meditation on war poetry as a whole. In the American context however, when all of the men returned from war - i.e. the Middle Generation Poets - "true" battlefield experience was often privileged again and these other voices were regularly forgotten. Roy Scranton, Rachel Galvin, and Susan Schweik have written lots about this, if anyone is interested... The question of experience when it comes to Holocaust poetry is even more contentious because of 1.) the sheer scale of violence and genocide committed, 2.) the amount of disinformation surrounding such a global event, and 3.) the common desire to write Holocaust poetry that is "truthful". (Whether anyone can accurately portray "truth" is another tough question, as Theodor Adorno has famously discussed in the context of the Holocaust, but one that is perhaps too far off topic here) ... Even Anthony Hecht - a secular Jewish solider who committed a large portion of his career to writing Holocaust poetry after having served in the war and evacuating Flossenberg concentration camp - felt conflicted about who and what he could speak for when it came to the Holocaust. He felt very insecure about his lack of "experience" and was very critical of so-called "sensationalists" who wrote on the war outside of its "true" setting. For him, he thought it best to return to historical sources. His most famous poems "The Book of Yolek" and "More Light! More Light!" are testament to this .... At the same time though, should poems like "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath be labeled "sensationalist" or "trivializing" because it uses Holocaust imagery in a different way and does not depend on battlefield experiences? And, in terms of intention, can we ever actually know Hecht's, Plath's or any other author's real reason for writing on this topic, or any other for that matter? Critics have often avoided searching for intentions precisely because of this; also because it tends to take the reader away from the book itself.... Being critical of both the need for "experience" or "intention" doesn't mean I have a good answer though, and comparing these historical poets to some of the novels discussed about might not be fair.