Facing death: confronting mortality in the Holocaust and ourselves

Articles by eleven Holocaust and genocide scholars who address difficult questions, convinced of the urgency of further reflection on the Holocaust as the last survivors pass away. Broken into three parts, this collection engages with these voices in a way that is not only scholarly, but deeply personal. The first part of the book engages with Holocaust testimony by drawing on the writings of survivors and witnesses such as Elie Wiesel, Jean Amery, and Charlotte Delbo, including rare accounts from members of the Sonderkommando. Reflections of post-Holocaust generations--the children and grandchildren of survivors--are housed in the second part, addressing questions of remembrance and memorialization. The concluding essays offer intimate self-reflection about how engagement with the Holocaust impacts the contributors' personal lives, faiths, and ethics. In an age of continuing atrocities, this volume provides careful attention to the affective dimension of coping with death, in particular, how loss and grief are deferred or denied, narrated and passed along.