Close to a time when there will be no more survivors to speak about their suffering, this innovative study takes much-needed stock of the past, present and future of Holocaust testimony.
Drawing from a vast range of witness accounts – including a never-before-published survivor interview – and carefully situating analysis within broader historical and political discourses, this international team of scholars address many pertinent issues of testimony in the post-witness age. These include: questions of representation and testimony form; memory politics and the role of the witness; the legacy of the Holocaust and impact on future generations; the digital turn and issues of access; and gender and testimony in the wake of #MeToo. Stressing the importance of re-assessing, re-contextualizing, and re-presenting testimonies, these essays make a powerful case for the ongoing centrality of witnesses and witnessing in Holocaust research, education and memory. In doing so, Holocaust Testimonies skillfully paves the way for future research with survivor testimonies.
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An innovative interdisciplinary examination of the future of Holocaust testimonies.
List of Illustrations
Foreword, Henry Hank Greenspan (University of Michigan, USA)
Introduction, Thomas Pegelow Kaplan ( University of Colorado Boulder, USA),
Wolf Gruner (University of Southern California, USA), Miriam Offer (Western
Galilee Colllege, Israel), and Boaz Cohen (Western Galilee College, Israel)
Section I Reevaluating Early Survivor Accounts of the 1940s and 1950s
1. The First Voices from the Shoah in the East: Integrating Soviet Records
into Holocaust Studies, Paula Chan (All Souls College, University of Oxford,
UK)
2. Shifted Expectations: From David P. Boders 1946 Audio Interviews with
Displaced Persons to Subsequent Holocaust Testimony, Daniel Schuch
(University of Jena, Germany)
Section II Reinterpreting Holocaust Testimonies
3. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch's Memories of the Holocausta Text-Based
Testimony, Christoph Thonfeld (KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, Germany)
4. Bearing Arms: An Israeli Womans Holocaust Testimony as a Study in
Testimonial Montage, Sheila Jelen (University of Chicago, USA)
5. The Conceptual and Methodological Usage of Holocaust Survivor
Testimonies in the Guatemalan Genocide and Its Victims, Yael Siman (Anáhuac
University, Mexico) and Maria Rita Corticelli
6. From behind the Wallfrom behind the Windowfrom behind the
Fence: Polish Testimonies of the Holocaust in Nowy Targ County, Karolina Panz
(Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland)
Section III. Holocaust Testimonies and Gender Analysis: Accomplishments,
Prospects, Politics
7. "All My Life I Have Kept This Secret: Sexual Violence in Testimony
Eighty Years after the Holocaust, Pascale Bos (University of Texas-Austin,
USA)
8. When Memories Come Late: Holocaust Testimonies and Sexual Abuse, Yaakov
Ariel (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, USA)
9. The Merging Self and the Paradox of Testimony: Auto/biographies by Women
Survivors and Their Descendants, Yael Ben-Zvi Morad (Ben-Gurion University,
Israel)
Section IV. Digital Turns: New Forms of Representation and Access
10. Reconceptualizations of Testimony at the End of the Era of the
Witness: USC Shoah Foundations Dimensions in Testimony Project, Sanna
Stegmaier (King's College London, UK)
11. Prosthetic Witnesses: Interactive Witnessing in Three Digital Memory
Media, Anne-Berenike Rothstein (University of Konstanz, Germany), Tabea
Widmann, and Josefine Honk (University of Konstanz, Germany)
Section V The Next Generations: From First- to Second- and Third-Generation
Testimonies
12. And You Shall Tell Your Children: Memory, Post-Memory, and the Future of
Holocaust Testimony, Avi Patt (New York University, USA)
13. Re-witnessing: The Role of the Second and Third Generations in the
Future of Holocaust Testimonies, Rebekah Slodounik (Bucknell University,
USA)
Bibliography
Index
Boaz Cohen is Senior Lecturer and Head of Holocaust Studies at Western Galilee College, Israel. He is the author of Israeli Holocaust Research: Birth and Evolution (2013) and the editor of Was Their Voice Heard - On Early Children's Testimonies (2016).
Wolf Gruner is Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History at University of Southern California, USA. He is the author of many books, including Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis (2006) and the prize-winning The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia (2019).
Thomas Pegelow Kaplan is Leon Levine Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Judaic and Peace Studies and Professor of History at Appalachian State University, USA. He is the author of The Language of Nazi Genocide (2009) and co-editor of Beyond 'Ordinary Men': Christopher R. Browning and Holocaust Historiography (2019) and Resisting Persecution: Jews and their Petitions During the Holocaust (2020).
Miriam Offer is Senior Lecturer in the Holocaust Studies Program at Western Galilee College, Israel and Lecturer in the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She is the author of White Coats Inside the Ghetto: Jewish Medicine in Poland During the Holocaust (2015).
