Date of Award
8-3-2006
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Jared Poley - Chair
Second Advisor
Hugh Hudson
Third Advisor
Alexandra Garbarini
Abstract
This thesis examines the way genocide leaves marks in the writings of targeted people. It posits not only that these marks exist, but also that they indicate a type of psychological resistance. By focusing on the ways Holocaust diarists depicted Nazi perpetrators, and by concentrating on the ways language was used to distance the victim from the perpetrator, it is possible to see how Jewish diarists were engaged in alternate and subtle, but nevertheless important, forms of resistance to genocide. The thesis suggest this resistance on the part of victims is similar in many ways to well-known distancing mechanisms employed by perpetrators and that this evidence points to a “crisis of imagination” – for victims and perpetrators alike – in which the capability to envision negation and death, and to identify with the “Other” is detrimental to self-preservation.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1059620
Recommended Citation
Tahvonen, Eryk Emil, "Perpetrators & Possibilities: Holocaust Diaries, Resistance, and the Crisis of Imagination." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2006.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059620