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Literature of the Personal Document as a Source in Holocaust Research (a Methodological Reconnaissance).
Jacek Leociak
jleociak@gmail.com Author Biographyfull professor in the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, head of the Holocaust Literature Studies Department of the Institute of Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, member of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, editor of the Holocaust. Studies and Materials annual. Together with Barbara Engelking he is a scholarly supervisor of the Holocaust gallery in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Interested in various forms of recording limit experiences (including the Holocaust experience). Recently published Ratowanie. Opowieści Polaków i Żydów (2010), Spojrzenia na warszawskie getto (2011), the new, amended, improved and extended edition of Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście (2013, together with Barbara Engelking) (English edition: The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City), and Biografie ulic. O ulicach Warszawy od narodzin po Zagładę (2017).
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1471-6926
Institite of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, 2008, Pages: 31-52
Submission Date: 2020-10-03Publication Date: 2008-12-01
https://doi.org/10.32927/ZZSiM.74
Abstract
In this article I focus on two areas: first – the genre typology of texts that belong to the sphere of the so-called personal document, their specific character as a historical source for Holocaust studies; second –the methodological challenge this type of sources posits for the historiography (not only) of the Holocaust. I raise the following questions: what is the value of personal documents for Holocaust historians, being a formally diverse record of experiences; how are they used in their research; how do they read those personal narratives? A more general context for these considerations is the debate on the conditions for Holocaust historiography going on among contemporary theoreticians of history. One one form of this debate could be described as a conflict between “historical discourse” and ”memory discourse”.
Keywords
Holocaust , methodology of History , memooirs , diaries , accounts
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Copyright (c) 2008 Author&"Holocaust Studies and Materials"
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