Transformation of Persecution in Holocaust Survivor Testimonies

Conference talk at the Conference and Workshop: The Future of Holocaust Testimonies V, Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel, March 11-13, 2019 The aim of the paper is to discuss adaptations of narratives of the Holocaust survivors by institutions such as museums, and memorials for various purposes. By doing so I will focus on the example of the former “Labour Camp for Jews in Sereď”. While re-think and analysis and usage of different tools of examining testimonies of the Holocaust survivors have helped to develop research not only in Holocaust studies, over-interpreting, adjusting, or adapting the same testimonies even for a “good cause” could harm not only the scholarship, damage public opinion, but also could serve as a very fertile soil for right wing extremist, anti-Semites, racists, Holocaust deniers, and all modern believers in “fake news”.

2016

2006

Choice Reviews Online, 2012

Ethnologies, 2006

The Holocaust disrupted the foundations of identity for Jewish survivors: religious and social communities evaporated, families dwindled. This study explores the process of identity reconstruction within oral testimonies gathered through personal interviews with Jewish Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States. Thematically, their narratives confront three major forces that place conflicting demands on survivors: disclosure or nondisclosure of Holocaust experiences, autonomy and connection with religion and family, and the clash between stability and change in the transition to America. Each site of conflict exposes gaps in how identity becomes manifest through personal beliefs, observable behaviors, relationships with others, and communal affiliations. Attention to how narratives configure identity suggests ways that personal narratives illustrate the process of actively recrafting fractured selves.

Narrative Inquiry, 11(1), 159-194, 2001

This research investigates the use of stories that are found through vicarious experience and told in a life narrative in order to communicate the meaning of the personal past. Through the interpretation of the life narratives of Holocaust survivors, we argue that stories outside of direct experience, collected stories, form the background of personal narratives. Collected stories are pieces of social interaction and context that are integrated in our presentation of the past, and self understanding, because they are personally relevant to us and congruent with the situation of telling. These stories have the potential to lose the indications that they are outside of direct experience and become indistinguishable from other stories that draw upon direct experience. Collected stories serve to situate our stories of the past and identity within a cultural horizon of sense and meaning.

Theory & Research in Social Education, 2006

Schemata. La città oltre la forma Per una nuova definizione dei paesaggi urbani e delle loro funzioni: urbanizzazione e società nel Mediterraneo pre-classico Preistoria e protostoria, 2023

Urbanism has long been recognized as one of the most distinctive aspects of the Cretan Bronze Age and in the past twenty-five years it has been the focus of many studies that have tried to assess its development and character. In fact, most of this work has addressed specific aspects of this very complex phenomenon, making any synthesis a very challenging task. However, thanks to T. Whitelaw’s long-term focus on this issue, and thanks to the comprehensive approach followed by C. Knappett, Q. Letesson and M. Smith in their landmark 2016 article, it is now possible to approach the topic with a list of six recurrent traits that could be treated as archaeological indicators of Minoan urbanism. This paper focuses on south-central Crete and intends to present archeological evidence that do not fit the criteria list in order to start reflecting upon the necessity of elaborate a new theoretical model not only regarding complex issues such as state formation, which can be easily detangled from urbanization, but also in terms of settlement type classification and definition.

2010