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Carolyn Ellis

Health Communication

Autoethnography

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Lechem Hara (Bad Bread), Lechem Tov (Good Bread): Survival And Sacrifice During The Holocaust, Carolyn S. Ellis Jan 2010

Lechem Hara (Bad Bread), Lechem Tov (Good Bread): Survival And Sacrifice During The Holocaust, Carolyn S. Ellis

Carolyn Ellis

In Judaism, human nature is understood as existing on a spectrum between yetzer hara (evil inclination) and yetzer tov (good inclination). Jews struggle to suppress the yetzer hara and exercise the yetzer tov. Based on an oral history interview and co-created by a survivor of the Holocaust and a researcher, this story focuses on bread (lechem) and hunger in a Polish ghetto. The narrative encourages reflection about good and evil and about the tangled intermingling of the generosity of self-sacrifice and the instinctive drive for survival.