Hearing the Holocaust

Among the vestiges of the Holocaust, one particular photograph stands out to the University of California Los Angeles Prof. Saul Friedlander. At first glance, the photograph depicts an ordinary scene: David Moffie receiving his doctorate in medicine at the University of Amsterdam Sept. 18, 1942. Yet upon closer inspection, one may notice a palm-sized Jewish star with the word Jooh inscribed on Moffie's sleeve.What makes this photograph intriguing is that at the date that it was taken, a German decree had banned the enrollment of Jewish students in Dutch universities. The minor detail in this photograph tells a story absent from solely studying German records. It tells a story of the interaction among German administrative measures, Dutch institutions, individual choice and, at the center of it all, the fate of the Jewish individual, explained Friedlander in a presentation March 16.

Friedlander, who lived through the Holocaust, used the detailed description of the photograph to open a broader talk, "Voices of the Victims: Challenges of an Integrated History of the Holocaust." In a rich, storytelling manner, Friedlander argued for an integrated history of the Holocaust that isn't limited to the factual accounts of history books but also includes visceral, personal accounts from a multitude of perspectives.

Friedlander's speech was given in honor of the first chair of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, Simon Rawidowicz, as the "The 46th Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture." The lecture was sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies and the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department.

Friedlander was born in Prague to German-speaking Jewish parents and moved to France during the years of Nazi occupation. There, Friedlander was forced to hide in a Catholic boarding school. His parents soon attempted to flee to Switzerland but were arrested by Germans and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1948, Friedlander moved to Israel and joined the Israeli army. After, he studied political science in Paris and eventually earned a Ph.D. at the Graduate Institution of International Studies at Geneva. He currently is a history professor at UCLA and was recently awarded a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his work The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.

Friedlander's argument for an integrated history objects to the view of German historian Martin Broszat. Broszat argued that personal accounts of the Holocaust must be overlooked because they are too subjective. He pleaded for a "historicization of the Third Reich," which would remove personal narratives from the reconstruction of the Holocaust.

Friedlander dismissed Broszat's view, favoring an integrated history of the Holocaust. The concept of an integrated history has three main distinctions from Broszat's view. He first explained that an integrated history is not limited to only German historical records, authorities and institutions, but includes the voices of all those affected.

Secondly, an integrated history includes the Jewish narratives of the Holocaust within the history. The Jewish voice is an "integral part of this history and thus cannot be considered a separate domain," Friedlander said.

He added that, "Of course, the diaries have to be used with the same critical attention as any other document."

Finally, an integrated history of the Holocaust should capture "a simultaneous representation of events occurring at all levels." He said that history shouldn't be considered in a "vertical" time frame, studying events as they occur in a chronological order. Instead, he argued that history should be considered in a "horizontal" time frame, studying events as they occur simultaneously to allow for an understanding of the context that surrounds them.

Friedlander shared several letters from Holocaust victims to show the irreplaceable information gained from personal accounts. He spoke of the necessity of personal accounts of the Holocaust in learning of the victim's "everyday world: that of despair, rumors, illusions and hope, in constant succession, mostly to the end."

Friedlander shared a letter from 17-year-old Louise Jacobson when she learned that she was next to be sent to the concentration camps. "You should not worry, daddy. First, I am leaving in very good shape. This last week, I have eaten very, very well. I got two packages by proxy, one from a friend who was just deported, the other from my aunt."

Friedlander also spoke of the value of personal letters in learning of "the amount of information about the extermination available throughout Europe about the fate of the Jews." To illustrate this point he shared a letter to home written by Wehrmacht Private H.K. June 18, 1942: