Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors have come forward only recently to tell their stories, Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos and concentration camps, to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. It shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably through time. By relating testimony to the contexts in which witnesses testified, it reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' ... More

Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors have come forward only recently to tell their stories, Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos and concentration camps, to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. It shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably through time. By relating testimony to the contexts in which witnesses testified, it reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' responses, and the extent to which their identities – secular or religious, male or female, East- or West-European – affected not only what they observed, but also how they have written about their experiences. In particular, what survivors remember is substantially determined by the context in which they are remembering.