Language:
English
Year of publication:
2003
Titel der Quelle:
History and Memory; Studies in Representation of the Past
Angaben zur Quelle:
15,1 (2003) 49-84
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Holocaust survivors
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Study and teaching
Abstract:
Despite the widespread opinion among historians that autobiography cannot be a substitute for history and is one of the less reliable historical sources, many historians of Jewish origin, among them those who wrote about the Holocaust, left written memoirs. Scrutinizes the personalities of these authors, as well as specifics of their memoirs and the messages they bear. Most of them are of German, Austrian, or French origin, and were raised in assimilated bourgeois families, sharing the culture of their neighbors. Their memoirs are different from other Holocaust autobiographies in three aspects: they cover a wider period, showing continuity between the pre-Holocaust world, the Holocaust, and postwar developments; they emphasize the distance between narrator and protagonist; and they express conflicted attitudes toward their Jewish identity. All these historians stress their commitment to historical scholarship. At the same time, their memoirs are important evidence of history's need to recognize the legitimacy of autobiography's alternative vision of the past.
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