The Holocaust and Memory

Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors, this book describes their life during the war and the sense which they made of it. It assumes that oral testimony is of more value than written, forcing the researcher to take on the role of active participant in a common effort to construct meaning. The book first deals with the differences between wartime experiences of Jews and Poles in occupied Poland, both objectively - stemming from Nazi legislation - and subjectively - stemming from individual experiences, for example on the Aryan side of the ghetto wall where Jews could either be helped or blackmailed by Poles. The largest section of the book reconstructs everyday life in the ghetto, showing a gradual deprivation of legal and moral identity, and finally even of individuality, while also showing heroism and a vivid spriritual and intellectual life.