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Shards of Memory Narratives of Holocaust Survival
Yehudi Lindeman
Assistant Editors: Lukas Rieppel, Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, and Anita Slominska
Foreword by Elie Wiesel
Book Code: C9423
ISBN: 0-275-99423-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-99423-5
256 pages, n/a
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 4/30/2007
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £27.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Add to the list of Holocaust survivor testimonies this important book that includes narrative accounts of 23 Jewish survivors, 1 Sinti (Gypsy), and 1 rescuer. Lindeman, director of Living Testimonies, a center for Holocaust research and documentation in Montreal, has written an excellent introduction that posits the motivation behind the needs of Shoah survivors to tell their stories. The book's chapters are arranged according to three distinctions: gender, age, and whether one survived inside or outside the camps, in hiding, or on the run. Lindeman explains that the decision to separate the chapters of women's accounts of the camps from that of the men was an effort to capture their particular experiences during the Holocaust. He is sensitive to recent Holocaust historiography that distinguishes between the gender-based behaviors of those who were victims of the Nazis. Lindeman writes that "although Nazi destruction clearly did not distinguish between men and women, there are differences" in terms of what was done to them (vulnerabilities) and what they did (their resources). The volume includes a country-by-country chronology discussed by the survivors, as well as a glossary. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.
    —Choice     March 2008
  • [T]hese narratives make an important contribution to Holocaust studies by providing a framework for stories that survivors often find incredibly difficlut to share.
    —Shofar     2008
  • Shards of Memory is a collection of personal testimonies of various means of survival by which individuals preserved themselves in the face of the great Nazi assult on their bodies, psyches, and lives during World War II. The Living Testimonies Project at the Holocaust Video Documentation Archive of McGill University gathers and records the experiences and eyewitness accounts of Holocaust survivors through individually videotaped interviews with survivors. The current volume is a retelling of 25 of these stories. The editors convey the narratives in the survivors' own words and provide candid descritions of the subjects' tone and manner of speaking.
    —MultiCultural Review     Winter 2007
  • Since 1989, Yehudi Lindeman has been interviewing Holocaust survivors for the Living Testimonies Archive in Montreal. In this volume, he shares the stories of 25 individuals. Included are those who managed to pass as Gentiles, others who survived the death camps, and others who went into hiding or escaped. The final narrative offers the perspective of a Danish man who helped smuggle some 7,000 Jews to safety. Elie Wiesel contributes the foreword.
    —Reference & Research Book News     August 2007
  • Endorsement From Robert Jan van Pelt,
    Co-author of Auschwitz (1996), Holocaust: A History (2002), Author of The Case for Auschwitz (2002).:     Yehudi Lindeman's Shards of Memory frames and informs the emerging debate on the value of survivor-testimony in the post-survivor age. The 24 "ghostwritten" narratives collected in Shards of Memory will confront the reader with the urgent and important question how and where the countless shards of individuality embodied in taped survivor-testimony will survive within the generalized and simplified narratives of future generations.
  • Endorsement From Sarah Moskovitz,
    Professor Emeritus of Human Development and Counseling,
    Department of Education California State University at Northridge:     This compelling book of Holocaust survivor accounts expands our understanding of human resilience. Prof. Yehudi Lindeman compiled these illuminating accounts. And we need to pay attention. For the world's future could depend on our vigilance and ability to extinguish the first flames of genocidal hatred.
  • Endorsement From Norman Ravvin,
    Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies,
    Concordia University, Montreal:     Lindeman's personal engagement with the material is impressive, and the volume's introduction and conclusion contextualize the strenuous work undertaken by the editors to transpose video testimony to the page.
  • Endorsement From Dori Laub, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.
    Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine:     Anyone who questions the value of Holocaust testimonies for history must read this book. This book goes far beyond story-telling and the mere presentation of past images, as it brings the survivors' actual experiences and reflections directly into the reader's very present. The individual accounts in this book just tell it the way it was. The stories attest to unimaginable events that are told with great self-restraint Not a word is wasted on self-indulgence or sentimentality. The images these stories create are stark and daunting; as they penetrate the reader. They are gripping yet matter of fact.
  • Endorsement From Doris L. Bergen
    Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies
    University of Toronto:     This is a beautiful and surprising book, intensely and painfully human yet careful and scholarly. Each of the narratives is distinctive and unforgettable; each is an account of extraordinary survival against all odds. Even the most seasoned reader of Holocaust memoirs and scholarship will find much to ponder here. Elegantly introduced and analyzed in a poignant and powerful conclusion, these testimonies constitute a historical record of immense value. This book is itself a testimony--to the enormous value of listening to survivors, and also to the incredible amount of knowledge, effort, and love needed to do justice to their lives and their words.
Description: As the last Holocaust survivors die, their testimonies make the transition from memory to history. In this compelling volume, Yehudi Lindeman, Director of the Living Testimonies Video Archive in Montreal, shares compelling stories of survival and triumph collected from years of interviews with those who lived through the most harrowing decade of the 20th century. Here are 25 tales of courage and loss, representing the experiences of women, men, and children who either survived the death camps or lived in hiding, and of their rescuers and redeemers. The testimonies included in this volume show glimpses of the big movements, the big picture of World War II--the fast German sweep into Poland; the bureaucratic German machine that marked and identified Jews across German-occupied Europe; the efficiently organized roundups of Europe's Jews; the gradual retreat of the Wehrmacht from east to west; the sudden attacks on Holland and France. The fate of the European Jews may be a collective one, but their attempt to survive the onslaught on their liberty and life is often best understood through the portrayal of individual struggles. By focusing on individual lives, the narratives collected here capture the flow of history in all its precise, subjective, human detail.
LC Card Number: 2006038807
LCC Class: D804
Dewey Class: 940
PDF Catalogs:
Praeger Public Library Spring 2008.pdf
Greenwood History Spring 2008.pdf
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