(Re)Mediating Holocaust Survivor Testimony
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.712.9410Keywords:
Holocaust survivors; testimony; prejudice; media ecologyAbstract
As the number of Holocaust survivors declines, their live eyewitness testimony will be preserved and communicated via other media. This transformation prompts a key question. What value can personal testimony have when disembodied and presented in a medium more manipulable by the audience? The response addresses three types of mediated testimony: the first televised broadcast of a Holocaust survivor’s story, on the 1953 U.S. television series This Is Your Life; archival video testimonies; and “unsettled testimony” consisting of less structured, first-person testimonies gathered by the author that reveal the challenges of discursive representation. Each type of testimony offers distinct advantages and limitations in reducing prejudice and fostering understanding.
References
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[40]. Boder, D. B. (1946, September 23). David P. Boder interviews Helen Tichauer. Voices of the Holocaust. Retrieved from http://voices.iit.edu/interview?doc=tichauerH&display=tichauerH_en.
[41]. Fink, R. (2008, October 11). Personal interview.
[42]. Seeburger, F. (2012). The open wound: Trauma, identity, and community. Seattle: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
[2]. Abramson, G. (2010, November 9). Oral presentation at Kristallnacht commemoration. Greensboro, North Carolina.
[3]. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley.
[4]. Graf, S., & Paolini, S. (2017). Investigating positive and negative intergroup contact: Rectifying a long-standing positivity bias in the literature. In L. Vezzali & S. Stathi (Eds.), Intergroup contact theory: Recent developments and future directions (pp. 92-113). London: Routledge.
[5]. Chan, F., Livneh, H., Pruett, S. R., Wang, C.-C., & Zheng, L. X. (2009). Societal attitudes toward disability: Concepts, measurements, and interventions. In F. Chan, E. Da Silva Cardoso, & J. A. Chronister (Eds.), Understanding psychosocial adjustment to chronic illness and disability (pp. 333-367). New York: Springer.
[6]. Postman, N. (2000). The humanism of media ecology. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, 1, 10-16.
[7]. Postman, N. (1970). The reformed English curriculum. In A. C. Eurich (Ed.), High school 1980: The shape of the future in American secondary education (pp. 160-168). New York: Pitman.
[8]. Williams, R. (1974). Television: Technology and cultural form. Glasgow: Collins.
[9]. Benjamin, W. (1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations (H. Zohn, Trans.; pp. 217-251). New York: Schocken.
[10]. UCLA Film and Television Archive. (2011). This is your life: Preserving Holocaust survivor testimonies on early television. Los Angeles: Author.
[11]. Holocaust Visual Archive. (2012, September 16). This is your life, Hanna Kohner. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ckFEnn5Bo.
[12]. Hartman, G. (1995). Learning from survivors: The Yale testimony project. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 9(2), 192-207.
[13]. Debord, G. (1983). Society of the spectacle (K. Knabb, Trans.). London: Rebel Press.
[14]. Novick, P. (1999). The Holocaust in American life. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
[15]. Flanzbaum, H. (1999). The Americanization of the Holocaust. Journal of Genocide Research, 1(1), 91-104.
[16]. Langer, L. L. (1995). Admitting the Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press.
[17]. Langer, L. L. (1991). Holocaust testimonies: The ruins of memory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
[18]. Weiner, S. (2009, July 13). Personal interview.
[19]. Stein, A. (2014). Reluctant witnesses: Survivors, their children, and the rise of Holocaust consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press.
[20]. Cohen, S. M., & Eisen, A. M. (2000). The Jew within: Self, family, and community in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
[21]. Binzer, I. (1997). Interview 28053. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Retrieved from https://vha.usc.edu.
[22]. Neyzi, L. (2008). Shared history, shared trauma. History and Memory, 20(2), 106-127.
[23]. Bernard-Donals, M. F., & Glejzer, R. R. (2001). Between witness and testimony: The Holocaust and the limits of representation. Albany: State University of New York Press.
[24]. Kaplan-Weinger, J. & Hoffman, Y. (2004). Testimonies of Jewish Holocaust survivors: Characterizing the narratives of resistance and resilience. In V. Khiterer, R. Barrick, & D. Misal (Eds.), The Holocaust: Memories and history (pp. 106-131). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
[25]. USC Shoah Foundation Institute. (2007). Interviewer guidelines. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
[26]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2007). Oral history interview guidelines. Washington, DC: Author.
[27]. Trezise, T. (2013). Witnessing witnessing: On the reception of Holocaust survivor testimony. New York: Fordham University Press.
[28]. McGreavy, B. (2016). Resilience as discourse. Environmental Communication, 10(1), 104–121.
[29]. Brewin, C. R. (2007) Autobiographical memory for trauma: Update on four controversies. Memory, 15(3), 227-248.
[30]. Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture. New York: New York University Press.
[31]. Bennett, B. (2018). Logically fallacious. Sudbury, MA: Archieboy Holdings.
[32]. Greenspan, H. (2010). On listening to Holocaust survivors: Beyond testimony (2nd ed.). St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.
[33]. Greenspan, H., & Bolkosky, S. (2006). When is an interview an interview? Notes from listening to Holocaust survivors. Poetics Today, 27(2), 431-449.
[34]. Schwartzman, R. (2015). Sutured identities in Jewish Holocaust survivor testimonies. Journal of Social Issues, 71(2), 279-293.
[35]. Parker, T. K. (2007). Teaching the Holocaust: The ethics of “witness” testimony. In M. Goldenberg & R. L. Millen (Eds.), Testimony, tensions, and tikkun: Teaching the Holocaust in colleges and universities (pp. 103-115). Seattle: University of Washington Press.
[36]. Miller, C. R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(2), 151-167.
[37]. Weine, S. M. (2009). The diffuse in testimonies. In M. Carrithers (Ed.), Culture, rhetoric, and the vicissitudes of life (pp. 53-68). New York: Berghan.
[38]. Cohen, B. B. (2007). Case closed: Holocaust survivors in postwar America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
[39]. Levi, P. (1989). The drowned and the saved (R. Rosenthal, Trans.). New York: Vintage International.
[40]. Boder, D. B. (1946, September 23). David P. Boder interviews Helen Tichauer. Voices of the Holocaust. Retrieved from http://voices.iit.edu/interview?doc=tichauerH&display=tichauerH_en.
[41]. Fink, R. (2008, October 11). Personal interview.
[42]. Seeburger, F. (2012). The open wound: Trauma, identity, and community. Seattle: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
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Published
2020-12-21
How to Cite
Schwartzman, R. (2020). (Re)Mediating Holocaust Survivor Testimony. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(12), 68–80. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.712.9410
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