Teaching the Legacy #34 - e-Newsletter for Holocaust Educators – Witnesses and Testimony – Special Interview Issue
Source: Yad Vashem
The 34th issue of Teaching the Legacy, e-newsletter for Holocaust Educators, has just been released. Historians, law experts, thinkers, writers, and artists have dealt to great length with the role of the Holocaust witnesses in research and in shaping memory. Presently, at this point of generational change, questions regarding the place of the witnesses trouble the survivors and concerns us educators and researchers as well: What will the world look like without survivors? Uncharacteristically, we chose to present a selection of interviews in order to examine the issue from different perspectives, and to that end spoke to researchers, academics, and educators
We met historian Professor Israel Gutman for a discussion about the role of testimonies in historical research, and about his memories as a survivor and as a witness in the Eichmann Trial. We spoke to Shulamit Imber, Yad Vashem’s Pedagogical Director of the International School for Holocaust Studies, about the educational significance of the witnesses’ role.
We met psychoanalyst and survivor Dori Laub to discuss his book “Testimony” (co-written with Shoshana Felman) about the witness’s difficulty to testify, and the significance of lacuna in testimony.
Not knowing what happened to his family members during the Holocaust, and a family secret concerning them, led author and researcher Daniel Mendelsohn on a self-discovery journey to trace six members of his family, as detailed in his book “The Lost”. In an interview with Mendelsohn we asked him about the significance of the journey he made following his family members and the need to discover the details of their untold story. This interview is accompanied by a special article and a book review.
As always, the newsletter features updates on recent and upcoming activities at the International School for Holocaust Studies and across Yad Vashem.