Who writes Holocaust memoirs?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How many Holocaust survivor narratives have you read? \u00a0I can think of: Night Clara's War Hidden in Plain Sight A Promise at Sobibor The Girl in the Green\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/writes-holocaust-memoirs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who writes Holocaust memoirs?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How many Holocaust survivor narratives have you read? \u00a0I can think of: Night Clara's War Hidden in Plain Sight A Promise at Sobibor The Girl in the Green\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/writes-holocaust-memoirs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-09T17:47:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2017\/02\/DP_class_at_Schauenstein_camp.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"647\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/writes-holocaust-memoirs.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/writes-holocaust-memoirs.html\",\"name\":\"Who writes Holocaust memoirs?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-03-09T17:47:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-03-09T17:47:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"How many Holocaust survivor narratives have you read? 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{"id":6223,"date":"2017-03-09T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6223"},"modified":"2017-03-09T11:47:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T17:47:08","slug":"writes-holocaust-memoirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/writes-holocaust-memoirs.html","title":{"rendered":"Who writes Holocaust memoirs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:DP_class_at_Schauenstein_camp.jpg;$ <\/p>\n

How many Holocaust survivor narratives have you read? \u00a0I can think of:<\/p>\n

Night<\/p>\n

Clara\u2019s War<\/p>\n

Hidden in Plain Sight<\/p>\n

A Promise at Sobibor<\/p>\n

The Girl in the Green Sweater<\/p>\n

The last of these I\u2019m reading right now, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve read more in the past that I just can\u2019t call to mind. \u00a0But here\u2019s what occurred to me:<\/p>\n

Holocaust memoirs seem to be written predominantly by individuals who were teens, or children, at the time.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Possibility 1: \u00a0it\u2019s just a fluke. \u00a0There are tons of memoirs written by those who were adults at the time, and I\u2019m just not aware of them.<\/p>\n

Possibility 2: \u00a0there were plenty of memoirs written by survivors who were adults at the time, but these were written decades ago, and no single one of these was so much better than any of the others as to mean that it has stayed in print, or in circulation at the library (vs. being deaccessioned<\/a>). \u00a0The simple passage of time has meant that it is those who were younger, who then reached retirement age, reflected on their lives, and wrote memoirs which were published recently enough that they are still in print or on the library\u2019s shelf. \u00a0As to the others, scholars can still access them, but not ordinary readers.<\/p>\n

Possibility 3: \u00a0Adults surviving the Holocaust were less willing to write about it later, either because they were less willing\/able to revisit the experience or because a child\u2019s narrative is more about the heroic adults who kept them safe, and an adults\u2019 narrative would be about their own heroics.<\/p>\n

Possibility 4: \u00a0Adults\u2019 narratives are just less sell-able. \u00a0The direct experiences of an adult in a Polish ghetto, or\u00a0suffering the brutality of a concentration camp, are just too awful to sell a mass-market book that makes its way to the library. \u00a0Children\u2019s\/teens\u2019 narratives are not as singularly awful because, to at least some degree, they were sheltered from the horrors by their parents.<\/p>\n

Possibility 5: \u00a0it was the younger survivors who made their way to the U.S.; the older ones were more likely to immigrate to Israel.<\/p>\n

Possibility 6: \u00a0demographically, teens were a disproportionate number of the survivors.<\/p>\n

Admittedly this is all speculation. \u00a0Readers, do you have any ideas?<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0children at a DP camp. \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:DP_class_at_Schauenstein_camp.jpg; public domain<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"