Facing Death

This superb volume raises fundamental moral, philosophical and theological issues about Holocaust and genocide victims and ourselves. Does depersonalized death have a meaning? What of our own demise? Pinnock has assembled an international and interfaith group of scholars from a variety of disciplines, and the fact that these academics interrogate and respond to each other makes this book a gem. -- Alan Berger, Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz, Florida Atlantic University Facing Death speaks to the heart of why study of the Holocaust, and genocide more generally, is an important task for any educated member of modern society since it exposes the deeper vulnerability that exists and persists at the heart of civilization. -- Henry F. Knight, author of Celebrating Holy Week in a Post-Holocaust World Remarkably original because it deals not only with the victims and their testimonies, but also with the impact those testimonies have upon the scholars and thinkers who study them. -- Peter J. Haas, author of Morality after Auschwitz: The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic

What do we learn about death from the Holocaust and how does it impact our responses to mortality today?

Facing Death: Confronting Mortality in the Holocaust and Ourselves brings together the work of eleven Holocaust and genocide scholars who address these difficult questions, convinced of the urgency of further reflection on the Holocaust as the last survivors pass away. The volume is distinctive in its dialogical and introspective approach, where the contributors position themselves to confront their own impending death while listening to the voices of victims and learning from their life experiences. Broken into three parts, this collection engages with these voices in a way that is not only scholarly, but deeply personal.

The first part of the book engages with Holocaust testimony by drawing on the writings of survivors and witnesses such as Elie Wiesel, Jean Améry, and Charlotte Delbo, including rare accounts from members of the Sonderkommando. Reflections of post-Holocaust generations—the children and grandchildren of survivors—are housed in the second part, addressing questions of remembrance and memorialization. The concluding essays offer intimate self-reflection about how engagement with the Holocaust impacts the contributors’ lives, faiths, and ethics.

In an age of continuing atrocities, this volume provides careful attention to the affective dimension of coping with death, in particular, how loss and grief are deferred or denied, narrated, and passed along.