Sun Turned to Darkness: Memory and Recovery in the Holocaust Memoir

In examining the recorded memoirs of fifty Holocaust survivors, David Patterson draws on the teaching of the sacred texts of Jewish tradition and the philosophy of Emil Fackenheim and Emmanuel Levinas. That memory, he argues, serves three purposes for Jews struggling to recover after the Holocaust. First, a recovery of tradition: Not only was the body of Israel targeted for destruction, but also its very soul, as that soul was defined by God, Torah, and sacred history. Second, a recovery fr...