The Era Of The Witness

What is the role of the survivor testimony in Holocaust remembrance? In this book, a concise, rigorously argued, and provocative work of cultural and intellectual history, the author seeks to answer this surpassingly complex question.

What is the role of the survivor testimony in Holocaust remembrance? In this book, a concise, rigorously argued, and provocative work of cultural and intellectual history, the author seeks to answer this surpassingly complex question.

Today more than ever before, the historical witness is now a “museum objectâ€_x009d_ in the form of video interviews with individuals remembering events of historical importance. Such video testimonies now not only are part of the collections and research activities of museums, but become deeply intertwined with narrative and exhibit design. With a focus on Holocaust museums, this study scrutinizes for the first time this new global process of “musealisationâ€_x009d_ of testimony, exploring the processes, prerequisites, and consequences of the transformation of video testimonies into exhibits.

This book places prison witness at the center of discussions of the human experience of law and order, and of the nature of the rights-bearing person. Readings of canonical and contemporary writers facing incarceration yield abiding literary tropes that chart the path from institutional abjection toward the minimal threshold of personhood.

For more than 150 years, thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to residential schools across Canada. Artist Carey Newman created the Witness Blanket to make sure that history is never forgotten. The Blanket is a living work of art—a collection of hundreds of objects from those schools. It includes everything from photos, bricks, hockey skates, graduation certificates, dolls and piano keys to braids of hair. Behind every piece is a story. And behind every story is a residential school Survivor, including Carey's father. This book is a collection of truths about what happened at those schools, but it's also a beacon of hope and a step on the journey toward reconciliation.

This volume explores post-2000s artistic engagements with Holocaust memory arguing that imagination plays an increasingly important role in keeping the memory of the Holocaust vivid for contemporary and future audiences.

The Care of the Witness explores the historical shifts in the crises of witnessing to genocide, war, and disaster and their contribution to nongovernmental politics.

In this companion book to the PBS documentary scheduled to air in May, the realities of the Holocaust emerge through the remarkable accounts of 27 eyewitnesses. Photos.