“The Cry of the Desperate and the Fortitude of the Remaining will Suffice”: Commemorative Literature, Documentation and the Study of the Holocaust, 1945–1961

Abstract

According to common wisdom, Israelis during the country’s early years were not interested in reading stories about Holocaust victims. In keeping with the labor movement’s activist ideology, only narratives of armed resistance to the Nazis were considered worthy of attention. An examination of Holocaust books published in Israel from 1945 to 1961 paints a more complex picture.

The first part of this essay examines the development of the various forms of research and writing on the Holocaust during these formative years. The second, major part looks at the policies pursued by Israeli publishers in considering and publishing Holocaust books and reactions to them in the contemporary press.