Crises of Memory and the Second World War - Softcover

"Suleiman's erudite and elegant essays display a profound understanding of the complexities of memory." - Chuck Leddy, Boston Globe "Suleiman has written a beautiful book, one that tackles uncomfortable questions about official myths and commemorations, juridically unforgettable crimes, and Jewish identity versus national assimilation." - A. M. Rea, Choice"

Susan Rubin Suleiman is one of a handful of scholars who have shaped the interdisciplinary study of memory, with its related concepts of trauma, testimony, forgetting, and forgiveness. In this book she argues that memories of World War II transcend national boundaries, due not only to the global nature of the war but also to the increasingly global presence of the Holocaust as a site of collective memory. Among the works she discusses are Jean-Paul Sartre's essays on the occupation and Resistance in France; Marcel Ophuls' innovative documentary on Klaus Barbie, tried for crimes against humanity; Istvan Szabo's film "Sunshine", a chronicle of Jewish identity in central Europe; literary memoirs by Jorge Semprun and Elie Wiesel; and experimental writing by child survivors of the Holocaust.