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Volume 19
Making Sense of History
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Jewish Histories of the Holocaust
New Transnational Approaches
Edited by Norman J. W. Goda
25th Anniversary Sale, 25% off all books! Add coupon code BB25
316 pages, 9 illus., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78238-441-0 25% OFF! $120.00/£85.00 $90.00/£63.75 Hb Published (September 2014)
ISBN 978-1-78533-343-9 25% OFF! $27.95/£19.00 $20.96/£14.25 Pb Published (October 2016)
eISBN 978-1-78238-442-7 eBook
Reviews
“In the new history, research has been redirected from the perpetrator to the victims, and the goal is to find the authentic Jewish voice. As a consequence, personal diaries, note books, and memoirs have gained a status that traditional historians have not previously imparted to them. Good index and select bibliography. Highly Recommended.” · Choice
“…provides an excellent model in how to interweave multiple contexts and multiple sources: by studying interethnic relations in local and regional frameworks, by exploring the infl uence of non-Jewish cultural contexts, and by broadening chronological scopes not limited only to the history of antisemitism.” · Slavic Review
“Norman Goda’s Jewish Histories of the Holocaust is an extraordinarily rich collection of essays that brings together an impressive range of Holocaust scholars. Many of the articles represent introductory ways into an individual author’s wider body of work on their particular aspect of the Holocaust’s Jewish history.” · German History
“Goda has done a first class service to the field…This history surveys a remarkably broad range of victim experiences in Holocaust history, moving Europe’s Jews from objects of the Holocaust ‘to center stage.’ Viewing perpetrators through their victim’s eyes brings into focus the tragic inability of many victims to ‘suspend their disbelief’ about the perpetrators while also presenting new perspectives for compassion toward those faced with ‘choiceless choices,’ as Lawrence Langer described them.” · Nathan Stoltzfus, Florida State University
“…for historiographical reasons and because of difficulties with sources, Jewish perspectives on the Holocaust have been neglected or marred by substantial gaps. The authors seek to remedy that situation, either through historiographical critiques, through case studies using Jewish sources, through addressing topics previously avoided for psychological reasons, or through their own reset of perspectives.” · Richard Breitman, American University
Description
For many years, histories of the Holocaust focused on its perpetrators, and only recently have more scholars begun to consider in detail the experiences of victims and survivors, as well as the documents they left behind. This volume contains new research from internationally established scholars. It provides an introduction to and overview of Jewish narratives of the Holocaust. The essays include new considerations of sources ranging from diaries and oral testimony to the hidden Oyneg Shabbes archive of the Warsaw Ghetto; arguments regarding Jewish narratives and how they fit into the larger fields of Holocaust and Genocide studies; and new assessments of Jewish responses to mass murder ranging from ghetto leadership to resistance and memory.
Norman J.W. Goda is the Norman and Irma Braman Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida. His publications include Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa and the Path Towards America (1998); Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War (2007); and The Holocaust: Europe, the World, and the Jews (2013).
Subject: Genocide Studies Jewish Studies
Area: Europe
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Norman J.W. Goda
PART I: THEORETICAL OVERVIEWS
Chapter 1. The Jewish Dimension of the Holocaust in Dire Straits? Current Challenges of Interpretation and Scope
Dan Michman
Chapter 2. The Holocaust as Regional History: Explaining the Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder
PART II: NEW APPROACHES TO JEWISH LEADERSHIP
Chapter 3. An Overwhelming Presence: Reflections on Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski and His Place in Our Understanding of the Łódź Ghetto
Gordon Horwitz
Chapter 4. Similarity and Differences: A Comparative Study between the Ghettos in Białystok and Kielce
Sara Bender
PART III: DOCUMENTATION, TESTIMONY, AND EXPERIENCE
Chapter 5. Diaries, Testimony, and Jewish Histories of the Holocaust
Alexandra Garbarini
Chapter 6. The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood: Biography of the Town of Buczacz
Omer Bartov
Chapter 7. “If He Knows How to Make a Child”: Memories of Birth and Baby-Killing in Jewish Testimony Narratives
Sara Horowitz
Chapter 8. “Why Didn’t They Mow Us Down Right Away?” The Death March Experience in Survivors’ Testimonies and Memoirs
Daniel Blatman
PART IV: RETHINKING SELF-HELP AND RESISTANCE
Chapter 9. Documenting Catastrophe: The Ringelblum Archive and the Warsaw Ghetto
Samuel Kassow
Chapter 10. Integrating Self-Help into the Narrative of Survival in Western Europe
Bob Moore
Chapter 11. Jewish Communists in France During World War II: Resistance and Identity
Renée Poznanski
Chapter 12. Freedom and Death: The Jews and the Greek Andartiko
Steven Bowman
PART V: AFTERMATH: POLITICS, AESTHETICS, AND MEMORY
Chapter 13. Contested Memory: A Story of a Kapo In Auschwitz
Tuvia Friling
Chapter 14. Pressure Groups in the American and British Administrations During and After World War II
Arieh J. Kochavi
Chapter 15. Travelling to Germany and Poland: Toward a Textual Montage of Jewish Emotions After the Holocaust
Michael Meng
Selected Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index