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.

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.

List of Illustrations

Introduction
Norman J.W. Goda

PART I: THEORETICAL OVERVIEWS

Chapter 1. The Jewish Dimension of the Holocaust in Dire Straits? Current Challenges of Interpretation and Scope
Dan Michman

Chapter 2. The Holocaust as Regional History: Explaining the Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder

PART II: NEW APPROACHES TO JEWISH LEADERSHIP

Chapter 3. An Overwhelming Presence: Reflections on Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski and His Place in Our Understanding of the Łódź Ghetto
Gordon Horwitz

Chapter 4. Similarity and Differences: A Comparative Study between the Ghettos in Białystok and Kielce
Sara Bender

PART III: DOCUMENTATION, TESTIMONY, AND EXPERIENCE

Chapter 5. Diaries, Testimony, and Jewish Histories of the Holocaust
Alexandra Garbarini

Chapter 6. The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood: Biography of the Town of Buczacz
Omer Bartov

Chapter 7. “If He Knows How to Make a Child”: Memories of Birth and Baby-Killing in Jewish Testimony Narratives
Sara Horowitz

Chapter 8. “Why Didn’t They Mow Us Down Right Away?” The Death March Experience in Survivors’ Testimonies and Memoirs
Daniel Blatman

PART IV: RETHINKING SELF-HELP AND RESISTANCE

Chapter 9. Documenting Catastrophe: The Ringelblum Archive and the Warsaw Ghetto
Samuel Kassow

Chapter 10. Integrating Self-Help into the Narrative of Survival in Western Europe
Bob Moore

Chapter 11. Jewish Communists in France During World War II: Resistance and Identity
Renée Poznanski

Chapter 12. Freedom and Death: The Jews and the Greek Andartiko
Steven Bowman

PART V: AFTERMATH: POLITICS, AESTHETICS, AND MEMORY

Chapter 13. Contested Memory: A Story of a Kapo In Auschwitz
Tuvia Friling

Chapter 14. Pressure Groups in the American and British Administrations During and After World War II
Arieh J. Kochavi

Chapter 15. Travelling to Germany and Poland: Toward a Textual Montage of Jewish Emotions After the Holocaust
Michael Meng

Selected Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index