Addressing the Missing Voices in Holocaust Testimony

Abstract

This chapter explores some methodological issues in using survivor testimony from the USC Visual History Archive. Are studies based on survivor testimonies biased, and if so, can these biases be addressed? What research questions can be answered using survivor testimonies, and what questions cannot be answered? Can social scientists properly study the Holocaust by using survivor testimony? The chapter addresses these questions by drawing on the author's use of Holocaust survivor testimonies in a study of Jewish resistance. In her studies of the Warsaw and Vilna Ghetto Uprisings, the author analyzes ways to include the missing voices of those who did not survive as a prerequisite to assessing the validity of survivors' voices as reflections of the entirety of the Holocaust victims' experience.