Testimony as a Response to Mass Atrocity: 1940s to the Present

doi:10.1017/9781108990172.006

4 - Testimony as a Response to Mass Atrocity: 1940s to the Present

from Part I - History

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025

Zoë Waxman

Edited by

Laura Jockusch and

Devin O. Pendas

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Laura Jockusch: Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Devin O. Pendas: Affiliation:
Boston College

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Summary

This chapter traces the long trajectory of Holocaust testimony from the 1940s to the present. It notes that there are different temporal registers for testimony, from accounts offered during the war to retrospective accounts offered after 1945, sometimes decades later. It notes the ways in which the testimony considered valuable expanded over time to include not just that of survivors of camps or ghettos, but also that of hidden children or Jews living in hiding with false papers. It also evolved in content, as testimony came to not just remember the dead, but also shape the living and the reconstruction of Jewish life. Even material culture has been incorporated into testimony, as artifacts from survivors have become “sacred relics” of a sort.

Keywords

Holocaust Testimony Jews Israel Germany USA

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 103 - 120

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990172.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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