The inevitable passing of all direct Holocaust participants (victims and perpetrators alike) makes the perspective of empathetic others all the more significant. Humanist sociologists can help in the memorialization effort by processing their own related consequential memories. They can share resulting insights into the human condition, and they can recommend this demanding exercise to others. As well, by using the new methodology of Appreciative Inquiry they can help assess the current balance of attention to Good and Evil in the Holocaust narrative. New attention could be paid to efforts made by many victims to not surrender to victimization, along with related efforts of onlookers to lend them assistance. This accenting of the positive might earn fresh and supportive attention to the Holocaust in the future from non-Jews and Jews alike who are unknowing, indifferent, or at arm's length. Success in promoting vicarious memories in those born long after the Holocaust, memories that draw more on Good than on Evil, could help assure all of us a finer twenty-first century.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlexanderJeffrey C.2004. “On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The ‘Holocaust’ from War Crime to Trauma Drama.” Pp. 196–263 in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, edited by AlexanderJeffrey C.EyermanRonGiesenBernhardSmelserNeil J.SztompkaPiotr. Berkley: University of California Press.
2.
ApplebaumAnne. 2006. “Five Germanys I Have Known.”Washington Post National Weekly Edition, October 9–15:33.
3.
Associated Press.2006. “Accord Would Allow Researchers Access to Millions of Holocaust Files.”USA Today, July 27:6A.
4.
BarfodJorgen H.1985. The Holocaust Failed in Denmark. Gylling, Denmark: Forlag.
5.
BergerRonald J.1995. “Agency, Structure, and Jewish Survival of the Holocaust: A Life History Study.”Sociological Quarterly36:15–36.
6.
BergerRonald J.GreenCharles S.IIIKrieserKristen E.. 1998. “Altruism Amidst the Holocaust.” Pp. 267–291 in Perspectives on Social Problems, Vol. 10, edited by HolsteinJ.MillerG.. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
7.
BernsteinRichard. 2006. “An Old Political Drama Revived in a New Berlin.”International Herald Tribune, July 14:2.
8.
BowdenMark. 2006. “The Six-Million Person Question.”Wall Street Journal, October 4:A14.
9.
ChalkFrankJonassohnKurt, eds. 1990. The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analysis and Case Studies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
10.
ChirotDanielMcCauleyClark. 2006. Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11.
CooperriderDavid L.WhitneyDiana. 2005. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
12.
DoorlyMary Rose. 1994. Hidden Memories: The Personal Recollections of Survivors and Witnesses to the Holocaust Living in Ireland. Dublin: Blackwater Press.
13.
EllisJustin. 2006. Lonely Planet Guide to Japan. New York: Lonely Planet.
14.
EskinBlake. 2006. “Letters from Hell.”New York Times Book Review, November 12:53. Review of Ann Kirscher, Sala's Gift: My Mother's Story, New York: Free Press, 2006.
15.
FathiNazila. 2006. “Iran Invites Scholars to Assess Holocaust as History or Fiction.”New York Times, December 6:A5.
16.
FergusonNiall. 2006. The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West 2006. New York: Penguin Press.
17.
FisherMaria S.2006. “Museum Shows WWI, Its Legacy.”Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2: A2.
18.
FreedmanSamuel G.2000. Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry. New York: Touchstone.
19.
GroganJohn. 2006. “The Amish Were Faced with Two Choices: Become Bitter or Forgive: They Forgave.”Philadelphia Inquirer, October 13:B2.
20.
HorowitzIrving Louis. 1997. Taking Lives; Genocide and State Power. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
21.
HuyssenAndreas. 2003. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
22.
InsdorfAnnette. 2003. Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust. New York: Cambridge University Press.
23.
JordanJennifer A.2006. Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
24.
KatzJoseph. 2006. One Who Came Back: The Diary of a Jewish Survivor. Takoma Park, ND: Dryad Press.
25.
LandsbergAlison. 2004. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
26.
LangerLawrence. 1991. Holocaust Testimonies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
27.
LangerLawrence. 1998. Preempting the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
28.
LeCarreJohn. 1968. A Small Town in Germany. New York: Coward-McCann.
29.
Lehmann-HauptChristopher. 2006. “William Styron, 81, Novelist Who Transcended Roots, Dies.”New York Times, November 2:B9.
30.
LeiterRobert. 2006. “Pitch Black: Little Light in the Background of a Survivor's Story.”Jewish Exponent, November 22:36.
31.
LeviPrimo. 1961. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Collier Books.
32.
LeviPrimo. 1989. The Mirror Maker. New York: Schocken Books.
33.
LeviPrimo (with Leonardo de Benedetti). 2006. Auschwitz Report. London: Verso (first time in English; written in 1945).
34.
LevyDanielSznaiderNathan. 2006. The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
35.
MakarovaElenaMakarovSergeiKupermanVictor. 2004. University Over the Abyss: The Story behind 520 Lecturers and 2,430 Lectures in KZ Theresienstadt, 1941–1944. Jerusalem: Verba.
36.
MendelsohnDaniel. 2006. The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. New York: HarperCollins.
37.
MontefioreSimon Sebag. 2006. “Century of Rubble.”New York Times Book Review, November 12:14.
38.
PaulssonGunnar S.2000. Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940–1945. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
39.
RingelblumEmanuel. 1993. Salvaged from the Warsaw Ghetto. Warsaw: Museum of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland.
40.
RomanoCarlin. 2006. “Is the Crematorium Half-Full or Half-Empty?”Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22:B13.
41.
RosenbaumAlan S., ed. 1996. Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide. Boulder, CO: Westview.
42.
RosenbaumAlan S., ed. 1997. Taking Lives; Genocide and State Power. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
43.
RosenbaumRon. 2006. “Giving Death a Face.”New York Times Book Review, September 24:11. Review of Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
44.
SatloffRobert. 2006. Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands. New York: Public Affairs Press.
45.
SchefferDavid. 2006. “Unlock the Door to History's Atrocities.”Financial Times, May 26:13.
46.
SegevTom. 1993. The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. New York: Hill and Wang.
47.
ShostakArthur B., ed. 1996. Private Sociology: Unsparing Reflections, Uncommon Gains. Dix Hill, NY: General Hall.
48.
SilvermanRachel. 2006. “Steadfast Message to Educators: Best to Pinpoint Shoah's ‘Key Issues.’”Jewish Exponent, November 30:8.
49.
SimicCharles. 2006. “Back to the Beginning.”New York Review of Books, October 5: 4–9.
50.
SkorrHenry. 2006. Through Blood and Tears: Surviving Hitler and Stalin. London: Valentine Mitchell.
51.
TerranceMarc. 2003. Concentration Camps: A Traveler's Guide to World War II Sites. New York: Universal Publishers.
52.
WieselElie. 2006. Cited in Ecu-Link: An Ecumenical Newsletter. National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, Fall: 1.
53.
WoodwardKenneth L.1975. “Facing Up to the Holocaust.”Newsweek, May 26:72.
54.
YoungJames E.2000. At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
