Bearing Witness: A Resource Guide to Literature, Poetry, Art, Music, and Videos by Holocaust Victims and Survivors

This resource guide will help readers locate over 800 first-person accounts, fiction, poetry, art interpretations, and music by Holocaust victims and survivors, as well as videos relating the testimony and experiences of Holocaust survivors. In addition to the few well-known writers, artists, and musicians whose work so eloquently captures their experience during the Holocaust, this guide will introduce the reader to the lives and work of more than 250 lesser known or unrecognized writers, artists, and musicians from many countries who documented their experience of persecution at the hands of the Nazis. This guide will help students gain firsthand knowledge of what it was like to experience the Holocaust and how ordinary people coped and created art and meaning from the ashes of their lives.

The entry on each writer, artist, and musician features a biographical sketch and list of his or her works, with full bibliographic data. Entries on literature and videos are annotated and include recommendations for age-appropriateness. The work is divided into five parts: writers of memoirs, diaries and fiction; poets; artists; composers and musicians; and videos that feature testimony by survivors. Each part features an introductory overview of the artists and art created in that genre out of Holocaust experience. Title, artist/writer, and nationality indexes will help the reader select materials, and an index organized by age-appropriate levels will help teachers and librarians to select literature and videos for students.