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Perpetrators & Possibilities: Holocaust Diaries, Resistance, And The Crisis Of Imagination, Eryk Emil Tahvonen

History Theses

This thesis examines the way genocide leaves marks in the writings of targeted people. It posits not only that these marks exist, but also that they indicate a type of psychological resistance. By focusing on the ways Holocaust diarists depicted Nazi perpetrators, and by concentrating on the ways language was used to distance the victim from the perpetrator, it is possible to see how Jewish diarists were engaged in alternate and subtle, but nevertheless important, forms of resistance to genocide. The thesis suggest this resistance on the part of victims is similar in many ways to well-known distancing mechanisms employed …