One, by One, by One: The Landmark Exploration of the Holocaust and the Uses of Memory

by Judith Miller

Reporting from six countries, Judith Miller of The New York Times describes the varying ways people in these nations have shaped and sometimes distorted the collective memory of the Holocaust experience.

Genres: History, Holocaust, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Cancerclaws]

The subtitle is the clue to the richness and depth of this analysis of memory. The generational distance from the event buffers the poignancy of the experience. As the mother says to her daughter, 'No matter how well you imagine, you will never know the smell of an oven.' To see how this dynamic played out in different political cultures made me feel like I was reading about current events, not history. These lessons are timeless and describe something inherent in human nature that we must always be wary of. The fact that I had just finished reading Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz's 'An Indigenous Peoples' History of the Unite States' drove the lesson home. The politics of remembrance and obliteration of memory play determinant roles in generational awareness of what we have done.
There are now three contestants in the battle for the historical narrative in the U.S. (The bleached heroic version I was taught in the 1940s and 50s, The slave narrative from the black authors especially women and the Indigenous narrative from the victims of our genocide.) All three are relevant to an informed understanding of who we really are as opposed to who we would like to think we are.

[Judy]

A highly subjective look at how certain countries view the Holocaust. Germany has paid reparations and made some attempt to deal with what happened. Under the myth of the Sound of Music and their role as first victim of Hitler, the Austrians have not dealt with the fact that the majority of the Austrians welcomed Hitler and that they assisted him in killing the Jews. They dream of their lost empire. " ' A cross hangs in every classroom. Prayers are said in school. In Austria, even the Jews are anti-Semitic.' " p. 65 quote from Ruth Beckerman, a young Jewish filmmaker. "Austria played a major role in the Holocaust. The country's Jews, the vast majority of whom lived in their beloved Vienna, were slaughtered." p. 67 "According to Simon Wiesenthal, Austria's celebrated Nazi hunter, little Austria.... supplied 75% of the staff of the Nazi concentration camps. In the Netherlands, "the Dutch Jewish death rate was the highest in Western Europe. In the East, only Poland had a higher kill ratio." p. 97 The section on the United States is a rambling, gossipy account of the infighting over the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the US Holocaust Museum.

[Geicodave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about six countries involved in the Holocaust as victims, perpetrators, or bystanders, or in the case of five of the six, a combination of all three. The book shows in detail how the individual countries perceive their roles and how they remember the events of the period. The book was published in 1990 and is therefore a bit dated. The reader will need to turn to more recent books to see what, if anything, has changed in these countries since the 1980s.

[Ken Frankel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sections by countries are examined closely for how memories of the past are kept intact and the debate on best ways to present memories in pursuit of posterity of those lives lost and victims whose lives were spat upon viciously so that some don’t even care to break the scab to reveal its horrors beneath where morality was banished by all humans in the caldron called a “camp.”

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dated now, and I think about Miller a little differently in light of recent events, but still a worthwhile read. Her points are insightful and well-taken.