Holocaust Testimonies
The Ruins of Memory
Seiten
1991
Yale University Press (Verlag)
978-0-300-04966-4 (ISBN)
Yale University Press (Verlag)
978-0-300-04966-4 (ISBN)
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An analysis of the ways in which oral testimony of survivors contributes to our understanding of the Holocaust. Using video archives the author shows how oral Holocaust testimonies complement historical studies and enable us to confront the human dimensions of the catastrophe.
This book provides an analysis of the unique ways in which oral testimony of survivors contributes to our understanding of the Holocaust. It also sheds light on the forms and functions of memory as victims relive devastating experiences of pain, humiliation, and loss. Drawing on the Fortunoff video archives for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, the author shows how oral Holocaust testimonies complement historical studies by enabling us to confront the human dimensions of the catastrophe. Quoting from these interviews, Langer develops a technique for interpreting them as we might a written text. He contrasts written and oral narratives, noting that while survivor memoirs by authors such as Primo Levi and Charlotte Delbo transform reality through style, imagery, chronology, or a coherent moral vision, oral testimonies resist these organizing impulses and allow instead a kind of unshielded truth to emerge, just as powerful in its impact as the visions taking shape in written memoirs.
He argues that it is necessary to deromanticize the survival experience and that to burden it with accolades about the "indomitable human spirit" is to slight its painful complexity and ambivalence. Finally he explores the task of establishing a meaningful connection between consequential living and inconsequential dying, between moral striving and the spirit of anguish and sense of a diminished self that pervades these Holocaust testimonies.
This book provides an analysis of the unique ways in which oral testimony of survivors contributes to our understanding of the Holocaust. It also sheds light on the forms and functions of memory as victims relive devastating experiences of pain, humiliation, and loss. Drawing on the Fortunoff video archives for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, the author shows how oral Holocaust testimonies complement historical studies by enabling us to confront the human dimensions of the catastrophe. Quoting from these interviews, Langer develops a technique for interpreting them as we might a written text. He contrasts written and oral narratives, noting that while survivor memoirs by authors such as Primo Levi and Charlotte Delbo transform reality through style, imagery, chronology, or a coherent moral vision, oral testimonies resist these organizing impulses and allow instead a kind of unshielded truth to emerge, just as powerful in its impact as the visions taking shape in written memoirs.
He argues that it is necessary to deromanticize the survival experience and that to burden it with accolades about the "indomitable human spirit" is to slight its painful complexity and ambivalence. Finally he explores the task of establishing a meaningful connection between consequential living and inconsequential dying, between moral striving and the spirit of anguish and sense of a diminished self that pervades these Holocaust testimonies.
Deep memory - the buried self; anguished memory - the divided self; humiliated memory - the besieged self; tainted memory - the impromptu self; unheroic memory - the diminished self.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 10.4.1991 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | notes, index |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 44 x 16 mm |
| Gewicht | 440 g |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945 |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Geschichtstheorie / Historik | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-300-04966-8 / 0300049668 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-300-04966-4 / 9780300049664 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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