Out of the Past
Simon Wiesenthal’s 'Hunt' for Nazis as a Form of Collective Testimony
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23777/SN0219/ART_FLIN01Keywords:
Simon Wiesenthal, Paul Ricoeur, memory studies, collective testimony, Holocaust studiesAbstract
The article examines Simon Wiesenthal’s life-long preoccupation with the Holocaust, by using Paul Ricoeur’s discussion of the two modes of dealing with the past – those of ‘memory’ and ‘history’ respectively – as a point of departure. Nevertheless, the article aims to approach the varying forms and expressions of this preoccupation in an integrated fashion, analysing it as different means of achieving one and the same purpose: giving a public ‘collective testimony’ of the Holocaust. Departing from Wiesenthal’s own experiences, as well as testimonies of how the events of the Holocaust affected his own larger family, and testimonies of events taking place in his original Heimat – the area of Eastern Galicia that he stemmed from – Wiesenthal’s work in collecting testimonies of Nazi crimes gradually aggregated into a special form of ‘collective testimony’ of the Holocaust.
Published
Issue
Section
License
S:I.M.O.N. operates under the Creative Commons Licence CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives). This allows for the reproduction of all articles, free of charge, for non-commercial use, and with appropriate citation information. Authors publishing with S:I.M.O.N. should accept these as the terms of publication. The copyright of all articles remains with the author of the article. The copyright of the layout and design of articles published in S:I.M.O.N. remains with S:I.M.O.N. and may not be used in any other publications.
