Reluctant Witnesses
Survivors, Their Children, and the Rise of Holocaust Consciousness
Americans now learn about the Holocaust in high school, watch films about it on television, and visit museums dedicated to preserving its memory. But for the first two decades following the end of World War II, discussion of the destruction of European Jewry was largely absent from American culture and the tragedy of the Holocaust was generally seen as irrelevant to non-Jewish Americans. In Reluctant Witnesses, sociologist Arlene Stein--herself the daughter of a Holocaust survivor--mixes memoir, history, and sociological analysis to tell the story of the rise of Holocaust consciousness in the United States from the perspective of survivors and descendants. If survivors tended to see Holocaust storytelling as mainly a private affair, their children--who reached adulthood during the heyday of identity politics--reclaimed their hidden family histories and transformed them into public stories.
Americans now learn about the Holocaust in high school, watch films about it on television, and visit museums dedicated to preserving its memory. But for the first two decades following the end of World War II, discussion of the destruction of European Jewry was largely absent from American culture and the tragedy of the Holocaust was generally seen as irrelevant to non-Jewish Americans. In Reluctant Witnesses, sociologist Arlene Stein--herself the daughter of a Holocaust survivor--mixes memoir, history, and sociological analysis to tell the story of the rise of Holocaust consciousness in the United States from the perspective of survivors and descendants. If survivors tended to see Holocaust storytelling as mainly a private affair, their children--who reached adulthood during the heyday of identity politics--reclaimed their hidden family histories and transformed them into public stories.
Honorable Mention, Association of American Publishers PROSE Award, Sociology and Social Work
Deborah Kalb's Interview with me
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"This beautiful book mixes elegy and exegesis to uncover the labors of a generation of Jewish Americans who have made meaning from and given meaning to the horrors of the Holocaust. Stein writes so well and fluidly that her rich sociological analysis reads more like an intimate family history. Highly recommended." -- Matt Wray, Public Books "This is a very important book about how the world in general and the United States in particular became conscious of the Holocaust. Beautifully and clearly written by Arlene Stein, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University, Reluctant Witness presents the challenges and complexities of Holocaust remembrance through interpretive history, interviews with survivors, and the author’s own stories of her life as a child of survivors." -- William Helmreich, New Jersey Jewish News "Reluctant Witnesses is a compelling portrayal of the paradoxes, complexities, and politics of Holocaust memory.... an important, necessary contribution." — Marita Sturken, author of Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero "Today, growing numbers of Americans are both obsessed with-and fatigued by-efforts to remember the Holocaust. After years of relative silence, how did we get here? In this perceptive and profoundly moving account, Reluctant Witnesses shows how feminist and therapeutic ideas changed our culture, opening up new spaces for victims of world-shattering events to speak for themselves." — Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life and Faith No More "Reluctant Witnesses is an important addition to our understanding of what happens subsequently to victims of trauma and genocide. Though Stein's focus is on the Holocaust, her insightful and sensitive work speaks to a wide audience." — Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Emory University "Reluctant Witnesses shows how stories of trauma shape personal identities, families across generations, and political consciousness. No other study so clearly demonstrates how narratives are shaped as much by the historical moments in which they are told as by the history they tell." — Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller and Letting Stories Breathe |