The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in Theory and Practice

Description

The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in Theory and Practice re-considers survivor testimony, moving from a subject-object reading of the past to a subject-subject encounter in the present. It explores how testimony evolves in relationship to the life of eyewitnesses across time. This book breaks new ground based on three principles. The first draws on Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” concept, transforming the object of history into an encounter between subjects. The second employs the Jungian concept of identity, whereby the individual (internal identity) and the persona (external identity) reframe testimony as an extension of the individual. They are a living subject, rather than merely a persona or narrative. The third principle draws on Daniel Kahneman’s concept of the experiencing self, which relives events as they occurred, and the remembering self, which reflects on their meaning in sum. Taken together, these principles comprise a new literacy of testimony that enables the surviving victim and the listener to enter a relationship of trust. Designed for readers of Holocaust history and literature, this book defines the modalities of memory, witness, and testimony. It shows how encountering the individual who lived through the past changes how testimony is understood, and therefore what it can come to mean. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Foreword PART I The Crisis of Witness 1 Name, Date, Place The First Testimony The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory 2 What It Means, and What It Doesn’t The Hanging Scene Witness and the Many Forms of the Present Rehumanizing the Past Limits of Collective Conscience The Crisis of Witness The Mandate Resolving the Dilemma 3 The Constrained Witness Limits of Language Who Is a Holocaust Witness? The Impossibility of Forgetfulness 4 All That Is Real (and Some That Is Not) Sabina’s Missing Face Being-for-Itself or Something-Others? Testimony and Its Many Forms Past in the Present Witness as Authentication Marvelous But Fallacious Returns to Auschwitz The Value of Rutabagas (False) Testimony PART II The Origins of Holocaust Witness 5 Witness within the Storm An Audience of Strangers Historiographical Defiance 6 They Were Not Silenced The Need to Talk The Awakening No Traveler Returns Dos Polyishe Yidntum To Tell the World That’s How It Was The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz The Theory and Practice of Hell Ka-Tzetnik 135633 PART III Trajectories Beyond the Final Word 7 Deep Inside, I’m Still There The Holocaust Man Reasons to Speak Scraps of Memory Listen Then Listen Again The Ossification of Witness The Keyhole and the Clothesline (Non)Closure Index