Reframing Holocaust Testimony

Noah Shenker

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780253017178
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

"An invaluable resource" for individuals and institutions documenting the experiences of Holocaust survivors—or other historical testimony—on video ( Journal of Jewish Identities ). Institutions that have collected video testimonies from the few remaining Holocaust survivors are grappling with how to continue their mission to educate and commemorate. Noah Shenker calls attention to the ways that audiovisual testimonies of the Holocaust have been mediated by the institutional histories and practices of their respective archives. Shenker argues that testimonies are shaped not only by the encounter between interviewer and interviewee, but also by technical practices and the testimony process—and analyzes the ways in which interview questions, the framing of the camera, and curatorial and programming preferences impact how Holocaust testimony is molded, distributed, and received.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Testimonial Literacy
• 1. Testimonies from the Grassroots: The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
• 2. Centralizing Holocaust Testimony: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• 3. The Cinematic Origins and the Digital Future of the Shoah Foundation
• 4. Telling and Retelling Holocaust Testimonies
• Conclusion: Documenting Genocide through the Lens of the Holocaust
• Notes
• References
• Index