This collection of essays by leading international scholars takes the Scrolls of Auschwitz as its starting point. These powerful hand-written testimonies, produced within Birkenau, seek to bear witness to mass murder from at its core. The highly literary accounts pose a fundamental challenge to the idea the Holocaust cannot be attested to.Preface; Eva Hoffman Introduction; Nicholas Chare and Dominic Williams 1. The Harmony of Barbarism: Locating the 'Scrolls of Auschwitz' in Holocaust Historiography; Dan Stone 2. On the Problem of Empathy: Attending to Gaps in the Scrolls of Auschwitz; Nicholas Chare 3. 'The dead are my teachers': The Scrolls of Auschwitz in Jerome Rothenberg's Khurbn; Dominic Williams 4. Chain of Testimony: The Holocaust Researcher as Surrogate Witness; Anne Karpf 5. What Remains - Genocide and Things; Ulrike Kistner 6. Representing the Einsatzgruppen: The outtakes of Claude Lanzmann's Shoah; Sue Vice 7. Reconciling History in Alain Resnais's L'Annee derniere a Marienbad (1961); Hannah Mowat with Emma Wilson 8. Gender and Sexuality in Women Survivors' Personal Narratives; Cathy S. Gelbin 9. Art as Transport Station of Trauma? Haunting Objects in the works of Bracha Ettinger, Sarah Kofman, and Chantal Akerman; Griselda Pollock Coda: Reading Witness Discourse; Hayden White
This outstanding book has essays from not only the leading academics in the field (including perhaps the most important philosopher of history of our time, Hayden White) but also from leading writers in this area (Anne Karpf, Eva Hoffman). Each essay is a fantastic resource, tightly argued, full of revelation and information. More, the book is a model of interdisciplinary work, combining history, literary studies, film, gender theory, art and philosophy. It is also a timely and vital intervention in the development of Holocaust Studies. - Professor Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Cathy S. Gelbin, University of Manchester, UKEva HoffmanlC@