Echoes of persecution: sounds in early post-liberation Jewish memories

This article proposes sound history as an approach to the history of persecution. There are close relations between sounds, social relations, and social change, and sound has special physical and emotional qualities. On that basis, the article analyzes actions by perpetrators and persecuted Jews, as represented in survivor accounts. It argues that sounds reflected the brutal, emotional, and unmediated character of violence. Sounds also convey ways for Jews to challenge German power, Jews’ lack of collective alarm systems, and the low-energy environments that they were forced to live in. A comparison with the noises of German anti-guerrilla warfare, according to survivor accounts, helps define specific characteristics of anti-Jewish persecution.