Amsterdam Publishers is the most active and biggest international publisher in Europe of Holocaust Memoirs by Survivors. We feel committed to keep our focus on this important genre.
Covid-19 has hastened the departure of many Holocaust survivors, resisters and eyewitnesses of the Second World War. This is especially troubling news given the current rise of antisemitism, neofascism, political extremism, and manipulation of the facts about the Holocaust across the world. During the events at the Capitol on 6th January 2021 some of the rioters wore anti-Jewish hate shirts making mockery of the annihilation of European Jews.
As never before, reading about the Holocaust and Holocaust education seems crucial. We need Holocaust education that is not purely about facts and figures, but rather about individuals’ and families’ life experiences before, during and after the Holocaust. These aspects could capture the minds and hearts of young people who could relate to them both as individuals.
Education is the key to preventing antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Hatred, and suspicion of ‘the other’ can only be overcome if we gain a true understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust and the long shadow it has cast on multigenerational families of survivors. Learning about facts and figures from history books has little impact compared to learning from memoirs of individuals who experienced or had witnessed the everyday horrors of the Holocaust first-hand. History is best served by focusing on the individual. It is those memoirs – regardless of whether they are literature with a capital L or simple accounts of raw memories delivered straight from the heart – that we need to cherish. As a matter of fact, less stylized memoirs tend to have greater impact on young readers because youngsters can more easily relate to the simple language conveying a variety of powerful experiences and poignant emotions.
As a publisher specialized in Holocaust memoirs, Amsterdam Publishers is dedicated to the fight against prejudice and Holocaust denial and strongly believes that education through these first-hand memoirs plays a crucial role. In this respect, Elie Wiesel’s quote is particularly powerful that indifference of the bystander is as bad as the behavior of the Nazis. Rather than sitting still and watch the world grow into a place of proliferation of all kinds of extremism and hatred, we want to act and let the world know what happened – over and over again.
Holocaust memoirs show the perseverance of ordinary people whose only ‘crime’ was being Jewish in the face of unprecedented discrimination and persecution. Memoirs by survivors are an irreplaceable source of learning, and the most effective tool when it comes to connecting with the young generations today.