From Victim To Survivor: The Emergence And Development Of The Holocaust Witness, 1941-1949
by Margaret Taft /
2013 / English / PDF
3.9 MB Download
This original study into the development of the Holocaust witness
is a groundbreaking contribution to the scholarship of early
Holocaust testimony. From Victim to Survivor challenges the
prevailing view that the Eichmann trial in 1961 was the impetus for
the public emergence of the Holocaust witness. Through a close
reading of diaries, memoirs, reports and chronicles, this book
proves that the Holocaust witness emerged long before Eichmann was
captured and before the world was ready to acknowledge their role
and status. The book argues that witnesses to the Holocaust first
strove to give meaning to the events that threatened their
existence over a critical eight year period from 1941 until 1949,
contributing to a shared understanding of what it meant to be a
victim during the onslaught of the Final Solution and what it meant
to be a survivor in the immediate post-war period. They confronted
an unprecedented threat to their existence that they struggled to
comprehend, along with the deliberate attempt by the Nazis to
conceal it. After liberation, they encountered a climate of
continued anti-Semitism, hostility, and indifference, both from the
Allies and the world. By refusing to remain silent, victims and
survivors made a meaningful and enduring contribution to their own
communities at a time when few others showed an interest in or had
an understanding of the Jewish experience of the Holocaust.
[Subject: History, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Memoir]
This original study into the development of the Holocaust witness
is a groundbreaking contribution to the scholarship of early
Holocaust testimony. From Victim to Survivor challenges the
prevailing view that the Eichmann trial in 1961 was the impetus for
the public emergence of the Holocaust witness. Through a close
reading of diaries, memoirs, reports and chronicles, this book
proves that the Holocaust witness emerged long before Eichmann was
captured and before the world was ready to acknowledge their role
and status. The book argues that witnesses to the Holocaust first
strove to give meaning to the events that threatened their
existence over a critical eight year period from 1941 until 1949,
contributing to a shared understanding of what it meant to be a
victim during the onslaught of the Final Solution and what it meant
to be a survivor in the immediate post-war period. They confronted
an unprecedented threat to their existence that they struggled to
comprehend, along with the deliberate attempt by the Nazis to
conceal it. After liberation, they encountered a climate of
continued anti-Semitism, hostility, and indifference, both from the
Allies and the world. By refusing to remain silent, victims and
survivors made a meaningful and enduring contribution to their own
communities at a time when few others showed an interest in or had
an understanding of the Jewish experience of the Holocaust.
[Subject: History, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Memoir]
