Holocaust
Studies: A Journal of Culture and History
Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.1
- Surviving Memory: Truth and Inaccuracy in Holocaust Testimony
by Mark Roseman
- In writing the biography of the Holocaust survivor,
Marianne Ellenbogen (who survived in hiding in Germany), the author was
able to draw not
only on the oral testimony of the subject but on an unusual range
of additional historical sources, some of which seemed to challenge the
veracity of the
survivor’s recollections in small but significant ways. In documenting the
process by which these discrepancies were uncovered and opening them to
scrutiny, the author seeks not to contest the unique value of eyewitness
testimony, but to lay bare the complex layers of memory apparent in one
individual’s re-telling of her Holocaust experience and the strategies
adopted within her account to help her cope with an unbearable
past.
Beth Shalom: Re-thinking History and Memory by Steven
Cooke
- This article explores the meanings generated by
and through the establishment of Britain’s first permanent memorial centre to the
Holocaust: Beth Shalom near Laxton in Nottinghamshire. The Centre is important
in a number of respects. In addition to the Centre being established from
outside the Anglo-Jewish community – hitherto the primary instigators of
Holocaust memorial projects in Britain – the Centre occupies an important
symbolic site, deep within the imagined landscape of England and
‘Englishness’. The article examines the way in which the mnemonic
sites relationship with its surrounding location is crucially
important in the making of meaning, both for the Centre itself and for the
surrounding
landscape. It concludes by arguing that an active engagement
with the landscape can be used to reconnect the spatial and temporal histories
of particular
mnemonic sites to explore the way in which the Holocaust is relevant
to past and contemporary British social relations.
War Crimes, Old Soldiers and Fading Memories: The Serafinowicz
Case by Alan Robinson
- In January 1997 legal proceedings in the first trial to be held
in Britain using the War Crimes Act (1991) ended when the jury decided that the
defendant Szymon Serafinowicz was unfit to stand trial as he was suffering from
senile dementia. In presenting a report of the proceedings and making
comparisons with cases in Canada, the author highlights the difficulty in
proving war crimes to the criminal standard of proof and maintains that, if the
case had gone to a full trial, despite the strong evidence against
Serafinowicz, it is unlikely that he would have been convicted.
An Evaluation of CD-ROM Resources as a Tool for Teaching the
Holocaust by Ruth Dale
- This article addresses three main questions: what
are the main problems encountered in teaching the Holocaust at Key Stage
4 (15–16
year-olds) of the British national curriculum; to what extent
does CD-ROM material on the Holocaust compound or alleviate these problems;
how should
CD-ROM material on the Holocaust be incorporated into the teaching
of this subject?
Poetry: Stop the Train by Berta Freistadt
Student Section: British Intelligence and the Holocaust: Auschwitz and
the Allies Re-examined by Barbara Rogers
- In 1981 Martin Gilbert published his influential work
Auschwitz and the Allies, arguing that the West was unaware of the ‘true nature’ of Auschwitz-Birkenau until 1944. In the light of
recently released documents in the Public Record Office concerning contemporary
British Government information on Auschwitz, this article highlights the need
for a reassessment of Gilbert’s conclusions. The author contends that
a definite and detailed picture of Auschwitz-Birkenau had been provided for
the
British Government from a variety of sources by December 1942.
Book Reviews:
- Women in the Holocaust by Dalia Ofer and Leonore J
Weitzman (eds.)
- Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp by
Joanne Reilly
- Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR by
Zvi Gitelman (ed.)
- Anne Frank and After. Dutch Holocaust Literature in Historical
Perspective by Dick van Gallasten and Rolf Wolfswinkel
- The Holocaust and History, The Known, The Unknown, The
Disputed and the Reexamined by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck
(eds.)
- Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris by Ian Kershaw
- I Rest My Case by Mark Verstandig (translated by
Felicity Verstandig)
- Jewish Claims against East Germany. Moral Obligations and
Practical Policy by Angelika Timm