Writing in Witness

A Holocaust Reader

Eric J. Sundquist

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781438470320, 9781438470313
• eBook ISBN: 9781438470337
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

Finalist for the 2019 National Jewish Book Award in the Anthologies and Collections Category presented by the Jewish Book Council Silver Winner for Anthologies, 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Writing in Witness is a broad survey of the most important writing about the Holocaust produced by eyewitnesses at the time and soon after. Whether they intended to spark resistance and undermine Nazi authority, to comfort family and community, to beseech God, or to leave a memorial record for posterity, the writers reflect on the power and limitations of the written word in the face of events often thought to be beyond representation. The diaries, journals, letters, poems, and other works were created across a geography reaching from the Baltics to the Balkans, from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the Soviet Union, and in a wide array of original languages. Along with the readings, Eric J. Sundquist's introductions provide a comprehensive account of the Holocaust as a historical event. Including works by prominent authors such as Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, as well those little known or anonymous, Writing in Witness provides, in vital and memorable examples, a wide-ranging account of the Holocaust by those who felt the imperative to give written testimony.

INDEX

Writers included in the anthology are indicated in bold type.

Aaronson, Yehoshua Moshe, 26–27, 69; The Scroll of the House of Bondage, 27–31

Abeles, [Otto], 346

Adorno, Theodor, xx

Agudath (or Agudah) Israel (Orthodox political movement), 43, 143

Ahasver (Wandering Jew), 105, 154

Ainsztein, Reuben, 178

Akdamus, 306

Akedah (binding of Isaac), 120, 254, 255, 309–10, 325, 340, 344, 397. See also Kiddush Hashem; ritual slaughter

Akiva, Miriam, 357

Akiva (or Akiba), Rabbi (Akiva ben Yosef), 324–25, 327–28, 340, 343, 398. See also Kiddush Hashem

Aleichem, Sholem, xvii, 110

Alter, Menachem Mendel, 309

Amalek (biblical enemy of Jews), xiv, 41

Amersfoort (concentration/transit camp), 183

Améry, Jean (Hans Chaim Mayer), xii, 1–2, 5, 14–15, 351; At the Mind’s Limit, 15–19

Andreas-Friedrich, Ruth, 9

Ani Ma’amin, 306–7, 393–94

Anonymous Łódź Boy, 121–22; Łódź Ghetto diary, 122–8

Anonymous Theresienstadt child, poem by, xv

Anonymous Warsaw Man, 19–20; letter from Warsaw Ghetto to gentile friend, 20–25

Anonymous Warsaw Poet, 339–40; “And I Will Impart My Revenge upon Edom,” 340–45

Antelme, Robert, xiv, 364–65; The Human Race, 365–71

anti-Jewish laws, 6–7, 11–12. See also antisemitism; Nuremberg Laws

antisemitism: and accusation of blood libel, 44; and accusation of deicide, 320; and creation of Jews as “enemy” and cause of war, xxiii, 5–7, 10, 11, 14, 45, 58, 64, 71, 153, 158, 167, 294, 320, 346, 390–91; historic instances of, 115, 305, 393; in Eastern Europe, 20, 72, 347; of Adolf Hitler, 6, 122, 131; postwar, in Poland, 273, 386–87, 391–92; postwar, in Soviet Union, 273, 386. See also collaboration; Lithuania; Nazism; Poland; Ukraine

Appelfel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• A Note on Sources and the Text
• Prisoners: A Prologue
• In the Ghetto
• The Final Solution
• The Gray Zone
• Holy Days
• Survivors
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover