Matters of Testimony

<p> In 1944 members of the <em>Sonderkommando</em>-the special squads composed almost exclusively of Jewish prisoners who ensured the smooth operation of the gas chambers and had firsthand knowledge of the extermination process-buried on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau a series of remarkable eyewitness accounts of Nazi genocide. This careful and penetrating study examines anew these Scrolls of Auschwitz which were gradually recovered in damaged and fragmentary form in the years following the camp's liberation. It painstakingly reconstructs their historical context and textual content revealing complex literary works that resist narrow moral judgment and engage difficult questions about the limits of testimony.</p>