University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

This phenomenological study explores the needs of community dwelling Holocaust survivors and proposes a framework for social work practice with this population. Data from qualitative interviews with Holocaust survivors and family caregivers of Holocaust survivors suggest that there are at least two different cohorts of Holocaust survivors in this study. These cohorts, referred to as classic and contemporary survivors in this dissertation, differ with regard to their age as well as the extent to which they are affected by numerous barriers relating to their health and physical ability as well as to language, education, and work background. A small number of respondents demonstrated characteristics belonging to both of the cohorts. A continuum, with classic survivors on one end of the scale and contemporary survivors on the other is therefore suggested as the best way to understand the differences between the two cohorts of Holocaust survivors in this study. Research findings compare and contrast these two ends of the continuum, as well as the cases which fit somewhere in the middle, and suggest the following five themes: 1. There are important similarities and differences between classic and contemporary survivors, 2. Individual Holocaust survivors, their family members and the larger community have all been affected by the Holocaust, 3. Identities and values have been impacted by the trauma associated with the Holocaust, 4. Survivor characteristics can be classified as characteristics of resiliency and/or vulnerability, (The sub-themes uncovered in this study relating to resiliency include fierce independence, a “never give up” mentality and a strong social conscience. The sub-themes relating to vulnerability include guarded trust, a “going without” mentality, increased vulnerability to loss, and loss of secure identity), and 5. The needs of the study population can be better understood by considering resiliency and vulnerability characteristics. The life course framework and individual and community trauma theories are applied to understand these research findings which inform the proposed framework for social work practice.

This phenomenological study explores the needs of community dwelling Holocaust survivors and proposes a framework for social work practice with this population. Data from qualitative interviews with Holocaust survivors and family caregivers of Holocaust survivors suggest that there are at least two different cohorts of Holocaust survivors in this study. These cohorts, referred to as classic and contemporary survivors in this dissertation, differ with regard to their age as well as the extent to which they are affected by numerous barriers relating to their health and physical ability as well as to language, education, and work background. A small number of respondents demonstrated characteristics belonging to both of the cohorts. A continuum, with classic survivors on one end of the scale and contemporary survivors on the other is therefore suggested as the best way to understand the differences between the two cohorts of Holocaust survivors in this study. Research findings compare and contrast these two ends of the continuum, as well as the cases which fit somewhere in the middle, and suggest the following five themes: 1. There are important similarities and differences between classic and contemporary survivors, 2. Individual Holocaust survivors, their family members and the larger community have all been affected by the Holocaust, 3. Identities and values have been impacted by the trauma associated with the Holocaust, 4. Survivor characteristics can be classified as characteristics of resiliency and/or vulnerability, (The sub-themes uncovered in this study relating to resiliency include fierce independence, a “never give up” mentality and a strong social conscience. The sub-themes relating to vulnerability include guarded trust, a “going without” mentality, increased vulnerability to loss, and loss of secure identity), and 5. The needs of the study population can be better understood by considering resiliency and vulnerability characteristics. The life course framework and individual and community trauma theories are applied to understand these research findings which inform the proposed framework for social work practice.

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (School of Criminology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Elie Wiesel's work has its roots in the concentrationary universe. Wiesel, the survivor, has committed himself to the role of witness. This thesis attempts to clarify the uncertain position of what could be called the "literature of testimony" considered midway between on the one hand, a formal literature, which tends to be out of touch with its "subject", and on the other hand, the writing of "reportage" and history. The study is divided into three chapters. In the first one we will examine the act of bearing witness and the act of writing. In the second chapter, we will analyse the components of bearing witness in Elie Wiesel's writings regarding to the enunciation and commitment, the pragmatic aspect and the difference between bearing witness and reporting. Finally, the narrative La Nuit will be at the centre of our analysis of Wiesel's work.

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“Studying the Shoah (Holocaust) forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good” (Lindquist, 2011, p. 26). The Pebbles for Peace project was created with the intention to explore these character extremes and to provide tangible examples of choices that can be made in life. This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the Pebbles for Peace project that will include the researcher’s narrative reflection on her personal journey through education, specifically Holocaust education, as well as observations of the impact on classroom participation in the project.

“Studying the Shoah (Holocaust) forces students to consider what it means to be human and humane by examining the full continuum of individual behavior, from ultimate evil to ultimate good” (Lindquist, 2011, p. 26). The Pebbles for Peace project was created with the intention to explore these character extremes and to provide tangible examples of choices that can be made in life. This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the Pebbles for Peace project that will include the researcher’s narrative reflection on her personal journey through education, specifically Holocaust education, as well as observations of the impact on classroom participation in the project.

<p> We live in a frantic, fractured, ever-quickening, and violent world that is at the end of the era in which we will be able to talk with survivors of the <i>Shoah</i>. To date, there have been approximately 100,000 recorded interviews of Holocaust survivors. The vast majority of these interviews&mdash;such as the 52,000 done for Steven Spielberg's and USC Shoah Foundation Archive&mdash;have used traditional, single-session, and "neutral" methods of oral history interviewing to "capture" and "preserve" the legalistic, historical "testimonies" of survivors. The present study responds to this situation and unique moment in time by slowing down, listening, speaking repeatedly and intimately, forming interpersonal relationships, and storytelling with three Holocaust survivors in the Tampa Bay area: Salomon Wainberg, Manuel Goldberg, and Sonia Wasserberger. I do this in order to see those I work with as experiential authorities able to help me address the classic and post-modern issues of human meaning, connection, and value in the post-Holocaust world. I first contextualize this work within extant and related research in the field of communication. Then I situate this project in the broader intersections of work on the history of the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. This is followed by an outline of the particular collaborative oral history and ethnographic theories and methods that influence this work. These contexts lead to three chapters, the ethnographic stories of each survivor I have worked with for the past three years. Each story focuses on: a) the oral history and ethnographic significance of sharing particularities of each survivor's experience through our dialogues together; b) broader insights and explorations of the central themes (compassion, identification, and affinity) that emerged from our interviews and relationships. The final chapter concludes by reflecting on and synthesizing the values and limitations of this project. As a whole, this dissertation cultivates and exemplifies: a) a unique understanding of humane and humanistic approaches to ethnographic methods in the fields of communication and oral history; b) compassion, identification, and affinity as important lenses and motives to consider in research with individuals (in particular individual survivors of mass atrocities); c) the historical value and need to continue developing diverse approaches to scholarship that centralize personal stories, dialogue, peace, wisdom, and work that represents marginalized experiences and experiences of marginalization in a violent, oppressive world. This dissertation is offered as a token of remembrance of the Holocaust and to those who shared their stories with me.</p>

J.M. Coetzee’s novels are suffused with a pervasive, though often oblique, Holocaust awareness. Direct references to the event and to the historical era to which it belongs, subtle stylistic and thematic echoes of Holocaust writing, and the recurrent mobilization of Holocaust imagery in Coetzee’s novels all contribute to suggest the significance of the event to the author’s work and thought. Providing Coetzee with a lens through which to view the contemporary situation, both local and global, the Holocaust offers Coetzee a means by which difficult and complex questions of ethics and historiographical truth may be approached. Above all, the Holocaust and its representation contribute to Coetzee’s exploration of the dilemmas of translating the traumatic lived experience of atrocity – including, but not limited to, life in apartheid South Africa – into narrative form. Taken as a whole, Coetzee’s oeuvre initially anticipates and later responds to, in characteristically oblique fashion, the narrative project(s) facing post-apartheid South Africa as the newly-democratic nation sought to make sense of its past through a variety of means, the most important of which was the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Implicitly challenging the TRC’s findings as well as its narrative assumptions, the Coetzean oeuvre accordingly invites being read as offering a continuous and evolving counter-narrative to the TRC and its construction of a narrative of the apartheid past for the post-apartheid nation. In utilizing the Holocaust, its representations, and the reception thereof to frame his response to apartheid, Coetzee implicates both in a critique of the Western model of modernity, suggesting, in the process, the importance of reconfiguring modernity in a more ethical shape. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-29 12:15:58.377