Jewish Histories of the Holocaust

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 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.