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Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust Through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts
Surveys evidence of the Holocaust in the form of personal accounts diaries, letters, oral histories, ghetto chronicles, rabbinic works, songs, and collections of photographs that give insight into the experiences of both Jews and non-Jews. Discusses literature in the ghetto in the Polish language, Warsaw's Janusz Korczak, the Vilna ghetto diaries, and diaries and memoirs in the collections in Soviet archives and in the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland. Also looks at methodological issues in Holocaust research, and the use of photographs as artifacts and evidence. The editor is a professor at Yeshiva University and the Ramaz School. The essays were originally presented as papers at an October 1993 conference. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
302 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1999
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October 3, 2013
A Critically Important Book About a Time We Must Not Forget
There are many books on the Holocaust, but this volume explores the topic from the perspective of diaries, memoirs, photographs, and other primary sources. "Holocaust Chronicles" comprises essays on these invaluable first-hand accounts, each written by a noted authority on the subject. Two Warsaw Ghetto is represented by essays on literary pieces: "Landkentenish: Yiddish Belles Lettres in the Warsaw Ghetto," by David Roskies, and "Literature in the Ghetto in the Polish Language: Z otchlani - from the Abyss," by Rafael Scharf; Janusz Korczak by "Who Korczak Was and Why We Cannot Know Him," by Richard Lourie (who translated Korczak's "King Matt the First"), and "Janusz Korczak on Planet Ro," by Betty Jean Lifton (author of the pre-eminent English-langauge biography of Dr. Korczak); other Warsaw Ghetto diaries by "'Will They Dare?': Perceptions of Threat in Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto," by David Engel, and "Two Forms of Jewish Resistance, Two Functions of Ringelblum's Oyneg Shabes Archive," by Ruta Sakowska. The Lodz Ghetto is represented by four essays: "Diaries and Memoirs from the Lodz Ghetto in Yiddish and Hebrew," by Robert Moses Shapiro, "Individual Experience in Diaries from the Lodz Ghetto," by Marian Turski, "Mendel Grossman: Photographic Bard of Ghetto Lodz," by Pinchas Shaar, and "The Role of Singing in the Ghettos: Between Entertainment and Witnessing," by Gila Flam. The Vilna Ghetto is represented by four essays: "The Vilna Ghetto Diaries," by Dina Porat, and "Vilna and Warsaw, Two Ghetto Diaries: Herman Kruk and Emanuel Ringelblum," by Samuel David Kassow (who himself grew up in Vilnius and is an authority on Ringelblum's archives), "Two Memoirs from the Edge of Destruction," by Jan Tomasz Gross, and "The Holocaust in the Diaries of Zofia Nalkowska, Maria Dabrowska, and Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz," by Magdalena Opalski. Also included are essays on unpublished diaries and memoirs in Poland and the Soviet Union and a series of Methodological Questions (including Rabbinical works). What makes this book so important is that it documents contemporary efforts to record the history that the Nazis wanted to erase and the rest of the world wanted to ignore.
There are many books on the Holocaust, but this volume explores the topic from the perspective of diaries, memoirs, photographs, and other primary sources. "Holocaust Chronicles" comprises essays on these invaluable first-hand accounts, each written by a noted authority on the subject. Two Warsaw Ghetto is represented by essays on literary pieces: "Landkentenish: Yiddish Belles Lettres in the Warsaw Ghetto," by David Roskies, and "Literature in the Ghetto in the Polish Language: Z otchlani - from the Abyss," by Rafael Scharf; Janusz Korczak by "Who Korczak Was and Why We Cannot Know Him," by Richard Lourie (who translated Korczak's "King Matt the First"), and "Janusz Korczak on Planet Ro," by Betty Jean Lifton (author of the pre-eminent English-langauge biography of Dr. Korczak); other Warsaw Ghetto diaries by "'Will They Dare?': Perceptions of Threat in Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto," by David Engel, and "Two Forms of Jewish Resistance, Two Functions of Ringelblum's Oyneg Shabes Archive," by Ruta Sakowska. The Lodz Ghetto is represented by four essays: "Diaries and Memoirs from the Lodz Ghetto in Yiddish and Hebrew," by Robert Moses Shapiro, "Individual Experience in Diaries from the Lodz Ghetto," by Marian Turski, "Mendel Grossman: Photographic Bard of Ghetto Lodz," by Pinchas Shaar, and "The Role of Singing in the Ghettos: Between Entertainment and Witnessing," by Gila Flam. The Vilna Ghetto is represented by four essays: "The Vilna Ghetto Diaries," by Dina Porat, and "Vilna and Warsaw, Two Ghetto Diaries: Herman Kruk and Emanuel Ringelblum," by Samuel David Kassow (who himself grew up in Vilnius and is an authority on Ringelblum's archives), "Two Memoirs from the Edge of Destruction," by Jan Tomasz Gross, and "The Holocaust in the Diaries of Zofia Nalkowska, Maria Dabrowska, and Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz," by Magdalena Opalski. Also included are essays on unpublished diaries and memoirs in Poland and the Soviet Union and a series of Methodological Questions (including Rabbinical works). What makes this book so important is that it documents contemporary efforts to record the history that the Nazis wanted to erase and the rest of the world wanted to ignore.
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