Monsters in the testimonies of Holocaust survivors

The piece analyzes written, oral, and visual testimonies (drawings, book illustrations, etc.), revealing monsters’ different meanings and functions for the survivors during and after the Holocaust, thereby challenging the tendency to disregard references to monsters in survivors’ accounts. The first section examines survivors’ depictions of monsters as a way of pointing to the true nature of the Nazi regime. The second examines the use of monsters as a means for expressing the incredible features of survivors’ Holocaust experiences and communicating their disbelief to audiences. The third section discusses testimonies that depict the journeys to the death camps as travels to an alien reality, in which the deportees encountered monstrous figures and feared that they, too, might become like them.