Distorted Memory. The Impact of the Holocaust on Testimony of the Nazi Persecution of Jews

This article examines Jewish post-war testimonies of the Nazi persecution of German Jews in the 1930s. It argues that many of these testimonies were composed in tight of the subsequent history of the Holocaust, and that expectations, disappointments, and questions arising from this subsequent history have been written into the memories of the preceding period. Consequently, these testimonies often bear witness not only to the experiences of the time in question, but also to retrospective expectations of what those experiences should have been like.