2020 journal article
(Re)Mediating Holocaust Survivor Testimony
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(12), 68–80.
As the number of Holocaust survivors declines, their live eyewitness testimony will be preserved and communicated via other media. This transformation prompts a key question. What value can personal testimony have when disembodied and presented in a medium more manipulable by the audience? The response addresses three types of mediated testimony: the first televised broadcast of a Holocaust survivor’s story, on the 1953 U.S. television series This Is Your Life; archival video testimonies; and “unsettled testimony” consisting of less structured, first-person testimonies gathered by the author that reveal the challenges of discursive representation. Each type of testimony offers distinct advantages and limitations in reducing prejudice and fostering understanding.