Between Memory And History: The Evolution Of Israeli Historiography Of The Holocaust, 1945-1961 (studies In Modern European History)

Critical study of the Holocaust began late in Israel, emerging gradually in the latter part of the 1960s. This book examines the link between history and memory in shaping Israel’s historiography of the Holocaust period in the two decades immediately following the Holocaust (1945–1961). During that time, three groups evolved in Israel as a result of the immediate catastrophic past: the professional historians in Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish ghetto fighters and partisans, and the "ordinary" survivors. These groups were shaped by different experiences and conceptions, and although these groups differed radically, their interaction within Israel helped shape and construct Israel’s consciousness of the Holocaust. In a native Israeli's analysis of Holocaust historiography, Kenan (modern Jewish history, U. of California, Los Angeles) begins with the dichotomy of perceptions of the Shoah between Jewish fighters and "ordinary" survivors in postwar displaced persons camps. She traces the initial silence of survivors and intellectuals, Israel's politicization of collective memory, the 1961 Eichmann trial as the turning point in viewing victims as heroic rather than as passive, and the shift since to a post-Zionist, "non-conformist" perspective. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR