Surviving Memory: Truth and Inaccuracy in Holocaust Testimony

In writing the biography of the Holocaust survivor, Marianne Ellenbogen (who survived in hiding in Germany), the author was able to draw not only on the oral testimony of the subject but on an unusual range of additional historical sources, some of which seemed to challenge the veracity of the survivor’s recollections in small but significant ways. In documenting the process by which these discrepancies were uncovered and opening them to scrutiny, the author seeks not to contest the unique value of eyewitness testimony, but to lay bare the complex layers of memory apparent in one individual’s re-telling of her Holocaust experience and the strategies adopted within her account to help her cope with an unbearable past.