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.

Norman J.W. Godais the Norman and Irma Braman Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida. His publications includeTomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa and the Path Towards America(1998);Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War(2007); andThe Holocaust: Europe, the World, and the Jews (2013).

List of Illustrations

IntroductionNorman J.W. Goda

PART I: THEORETICAL OVERVIEWS

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

Chapter 2. The Holocaust as Regional History: Explaining theBloodlandsTimothy 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 ód GhettoGordon Horwitz

Chapter 4. Similarity and Differences: A Comparative Study between the Ghettos in Biaystok and KielceSara Bender

PART III: DOCUMENTATION, TESTIMONY, AND EXPERIENCE

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

Chapter 6. The Voice of Your Brothers Blood: Biography of the Town of BuczaczOmer Bartov

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

Chapter 8. Why Didnt They Mow Us Down Right Away? The Death March Experience in Survivors Testimonies and MemoirsDaniel Blatman

PART IV: RETHINKING SELF-HELP AND RESISTANCE

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

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

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

Chapter 12.Freedom and Death: The Jews and the GreekAndartikoSteven Bowman

PART V: AFTERMATH: POLITICS, AESTHETICS, AND MEMORY

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

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

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

Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index