Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust

[robert wiener <wiener...>]

Apparently just issued:

Various Artists
Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust
(Rhino)
The true terror of the 20th century has been that what militarism
couldn't destroy, the marketplace might erase. Luckily, the 1990s
trend of oddly reassuring Holocaust blockbusters has been a spur
rather than an impediment to the substance and diversity of Holocaust
documentation. A major one is this four-CD set, the only widely
available oral history of the Holocaust in this medium.
Many survivors, refugees, liberators, and descendants tell their
stories here, in reminiscences clearly allowed to take their own
course, without questionnaires or time-limits. Excerpts are alternated
for a lively and natural conversational feel, opening out from a
chorus of interwoven accounts to longer personal narratives midway
through the set.
The incidents of intimate atrocity and charity are what resonate most
deeply, re-personalizing events whose collective scale could be
overpowering at the time and numbing in retrospect. Unknown stories of
resistance and forgiveness offer hope, just as a clear-eyed view of
uneven endings -- lingering traumatic associations, persistent
post-war prejudice, the compromises of survival -- guards against
complacency.
The testimony of Japanese-American GIs who fought Hitler while their
own families lingered in the Stateside version of the concentration
camps, and of a Jewish chaplain's crusade to help neglected survivors
in defiance of U.S. Army red tape, pre-empt self-congratulation while
offering uplift and even humor.
A 100-page book adds engaging and challenging study material. A
well-played Jewish-traditional score complements the quotes in a
mood-setting but not manipulative way. However, occasional
sound-effects are annoyingly superfluous to the speaker's own drama,
and comic actor Elliott Gould makes a gauche and intrusive narrator,
though luckily a sporadic one. But overall, this project pricelessly
evokes the sweep of the century in all its optimism and despair,
becoming an important handbook for understanding history, and maybe
even continuing it.
Adam Sternberg McGovern


Bob

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