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Recommended Books:
Testimony Anthologies and Collections
Dr. Gideon Greif
Flares of Memory: Survivors Remember - Stories of Childhood during the Holocaust
Anita Brostoff (ed.) with Sheila Chamovitz
Oxford University Press
New York, 2001
344 pp.
This compendium of testimony, written by survivors, is a product of memory-writing workshops conducted by
editors Brostoff and Chamovitz. The book covers many aspects of Holocaust research - Jewish life before the Holocaust, the destruction
of the family unit, daily dangers, hope and despair, humiliation, poverty, hiding, hunger and religious life. The book also focuses on the Righteous Among the Nations and the sustaining power of familial ties. Other topics covered are the aftermath of
the Holocaust and the liberation period, making for an extensive, varied collection of Holocaust memoirs.
Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust: A New History in the Words of the Men and Women who Survived
Lyn Smith
Carroll and Graf
New York, 2006
350 pp.
Lyn Smith has been involved with the creation of the Holocaust Sound Archive at the Imperial War Museum, and has interviewed
Holocaust survivors for over twenty-five years. The voices collected in this volume provide a unique insight into the complex
human reality behind the abstract statistics of extermination. Susan Sinclair describes the terror and distress her parents suffered when, during
the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom ("night of shattered glass"), a German mob broke into their apartment, attacked her and ripped her nightgown to shreds.
There are numerous historical accounts of deportations to Auschwitz and other camps, as well as the powerful, vivid accounts
of Trude Levi and Barbara Stimler of their journey in locked, airless cattle wagons to Auschwitz.
During the interview sessions, the author experienced firsthand the distress and difficulty survivors endured in sharing their stories, many for the
first time. Details were often too painful to recall, and several survivors have explained the inadequacy of language to convey the sights, sounds,
smells, humiliation, degradation, and sheer terror endured. Also, given the challenge of building new lives in the austerity of the post-war world,
survivors were often too busy to dwell on the past, and if they wished to speak – few seemed willing to listen.
Despite the brutality and degradation endured, these testimonies are not just images of darkness and despair. Instances of
mutual support, goodness and small gestures of reciprocated kindness are recalled as well. There are countless examples of how, even in the most deprived
degrading and cruel circumstances, people held firm to their humanity and steadfastly clung to the values that their parents and communities had
bequeathed them. Even “Jewish humor” persisted.
Children Who Survived the Final Solution
Edited by Peter Tarjan
iUniverse,
New York, 2004
252 pp.
Published at the initiative of the Child Survivors of the Holocaust in South Florida, this volume collects twenty-six personal testimonies
of children who survived the Holocaust. The result is a moving and fascinating living memory of a lost, interrupted childhood. The
survivors, today grandparents, remember their childhood clearly and prove again how important oral history is for understanding the major events of the Holocaust.
Shards of Memory: Narratives of Holocaust Survival
Yehudi Lindeman (ed.)
Praeger Publishers, 2007
223 pp.
Yehudi Lindeman is Professor Emeritus of English at McGill University and director of Living Testimonies, a center for Holocaust research
and documentation in Montreal. In 1990 Lindeman contributed to founding the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors. As a child survivor
of the Holocaust, he was separated from his family and moved through safe houses in
Nazi occupied Holland by members of the Dutch
resistance. In this book the author shares compelling stories collected from years of interviews with those who lived through the Holocaust
period. Included are twenty-five testimonies, representing the experiences of women, men and children, who either survived the death
camps or lived in hiding. Testimonies from their rescuers and redeemers are also included.
The fate of European Jewry may be a collective one, but their attempt to survive the disruption of their liberty and life is often best
understood through the portrayal of individual struggles. By focusing on individuals, the narratives collected here capture the flow of history in
all its precise, subjective, human detail, and this makes Shards of Memory a worthy publication.
Hidden from the Holocaust: Stories of Resilient Children Who Survived and Thrived
Kerry Bluglass
Westport, 2003
271 pp.
Psychiatrist Kerry Bluglass presents fifteen interviews with survivors who, as children during the Holocaust, were hidden by non-Jews
and thus rescued from an almost certain death. Today, all are stable, healthy, intelligent, and share a surprising sense of humor.
Together, these survivors show a profound ability to recover and thrive, as well as an unexpected resilience. At the book’s core are several remarkable
narratives told by survivors in their own words. These accounts stand as a reminder of what it means to suffer as a child and what
courage is required to recapture a meaningful life after such severe trauma. Their stories offer grounds for research that may help
traumatized children recover more easily.
I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II
Susie Davidson (ed.)
Ibbetson Street Press
Somerville, 2005
407 pp.
This collection of testimonies, written by the survivors in their own words, is an example of the important localized documentation work
carried out by many Holocaust centers in the United States. Stories include those of Michael
Kraus, who survived the “Family Camp” in
Auschwitz-Birkenau and the last big selection by Josef Mengele; Rena Finder, who was saved thanks to Oskar Schindler; Channa Seldin
who survived the Majdanek extermination camp and Stephan Ross, who endured horrible Nazi medical experiments, and others.
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