The other Anne Frank

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt writes movingly about the Nazis’ failed attempt to plunge the entire Holocaust into silence. The Nazis thought they could exterminate the Jews so totally that not a single voice would remain to describe what had happened. This would mean literally erasing the Jews from the face of the earth—the ultimate demonstration of the totalitarian state’s power to reshape reality. But, Arendt concluded, this power has its limits; there is no such thing as complete oblivion. From the day the Holocaust ended until today, voices keep coming forward to break the silence, to reestablish contact between the concentration camp and the world.

Helga’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Account of Life in a Concentration Camp is the latest of these revenants.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112805/helgas-diary-helga-weiss-reviewed-adam-kirsch