Overview

This book is a collection of seventeen scholarly articles which analyze Holocaust testimonies, photographs, documents, literature and films, as well as teaching methods in Holocaust education. Most of these essays were originally presented as papers at the Millersville University Conferences on the Holocaust and Genocide from 2010 to 2012.In their articles, the contributors discuss the Holocaust in concentration camps and ghettos, as well as the Nazis' methods of exterminating Jews. The authors analyze the reliability of photographic evidence and eyewitness testimonies about the Holocaust. The essays also describe the psychological impact of the Holocaust on survivors, witnesses and perpetrators, and upon Jewish identity in general after the Second World War.The scholars explore the problems of the memorialization of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and the description of the Holocaust in Russian literature. Several essays are devoted to the representation of the Holocaust in film, and trace the evolution of its depiction from the early Holocaust movies of the late 1940s – early 1950s to modern Holocaust fantasy films. They also show the influence of Holocaust cinema on feature films about the Armenian Genocide.Lastly, several authors propose innovative methods of teaching the Holocaust to college students. The younger generation of students may see the Holocaust as an event of the distant past, so new teaching methods are needed to explain its significance. This collection of essays, based on new multi-disciplinary research and innovative methods of teaching, opens many unknown aspects and provides new perspectives on the Holocaust.

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9781443854771

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Reviews

Among the many books on the Holocaust, this one is distinguished by the originality of its contributions and its multi-dimensionality. It brings us new information about Soviet Jewish writings, very early Holocaust films, the value of oral testimonies, and methods of teaching about the Holocaust. The chapters, most of which originated as papers at the Millersville University Conferences on the Holocaust and Genocide in 2010-2012, offer fresh perspectives on the Holocaust. They deal not only with the history of the Holocaust but the role of memories, photo documents, literature and films in understanding it. The book contains valuable and thought-provoking correctives to common perceptions and misperceptions. A striking theme is how politics have affected our understandings, as in the low profile of Babi Yar among Nazi atrocities, western dismissal of Soviet photographs, and the blocking of films about the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government. This is truly an original contribution that should be used with great profit by scholars and students. -Zvi Gitelman, Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan This important and innovative collection of essays provides a mass of new material on different aspects of the Holocaust, including the relative importance of mass executions and of death camps in the genocide, on the way the Holocaust was recorded and envisaged in photographs, literature and film and on the problem of how the history of these tragic events can best be taught. It is essential reading for all those interested in the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Second World War. -Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Chief Historian, Permanent Exhibition at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw This collection brings together innovative and cutting-edge research on the Holocaust from across a variety of disciplines. The articles stand as a testament to the breadth of research being conducted on the Holocaust today, and the different ways with which contemporary scholars are grappling with its interpretation and representation. This work will be a useful resource for educators and students alike. -Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan

Author Information

Victoria Khiterer is an Assistant Professor of History at Millersville University, Pennsylvania. She is Director of the Millersville University Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Professor Khiterer holds a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, from Brandeis University (2008) and a PhD in Russian Jewish History, from the Russian State University in Humanities, Moscow (1996). She is the author of two books and over eighty articles on Russian and Eastern European Jewish history.

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