Greenspan, a psychologist, spent more than two decades interviewing and reinterviewing the same small group of Holocaust survivors, beginning in the late 1970s. In this book he restricts himself to seven people who were part of the initial study, four men and three women. Greenspan explains that they speak of a preoccupying pain, of fears for the future, and of losses of the past. They question God, society, or fate; some are more likely to question themselves. Those who are initially most outraged or assertive also speak eventually of self-doubt, terror, or despair. And those who first seem bound up by self-questioning, restraint, or grief also give voice to outward accusations or reveal thoughts of retaliation. In an insightful foreword, Robert Coles speaks of "trying to make sense of things, even to make sense of the senseless." Greenspan has raised sympathetic listening to its highest level. The result is a truly important book both powerful and compelling.
George Cohen
“Greenspan uncovers the internal tensions that have driven the survivors' searches for their own meaning in their posttraumatic world. All levels.”–
Choice“Greenspan acknowledges that silence is part of the recounting....Greenspan reminds us that there are some things that words, even a flood of words, simply cannot convey. On Listening to Holocaust Survivors offers several other valuable insights....The explanations offered by scholars such as Greenspan, Roseman, and Tec shed light on the roots of inaccuracies and discrepancies in Holocause accounts. Diaries, testimonies, and memoirs about the Holocaust should not be put on a pedestal or treated as sacred. They need to be approached with an understanding of their fundamental strengths and weaknesses....When we read firsthand accounts about the experiences of Jews in the Holocaust, we are invloved not only in a learning process, but in commemoration.”–
Studies In Contemporary Jewry An Annual XVIII“Henry Greenspan has broken ground with an approach to Holocaust listening so alive, so interactive, that it begs the rethinking of interviewing so far....His views, ultimately, are a synthesis of psychological, historical, sociological and theological outlooks that have come before, viewed in concert with a courage to defy convention while retaining an ever-abiding sympathy for victims.”–
Jewish Book World“Greenspan has raised sympathetic listening to its highest level. The result is a truly important book both powerful and compelling.”–
Booklist“Through his focus on listening to Holocaust survivors, Henry Greenspan has unravelled the tangled webs of misunderstanding and indentified the need to find terms of understanding that do not close off listening with a self-satisfying account of the suffering victim's assumed psychopathology- caveats that are important to the therapist-listener....This marvellous book should be read by all who wish to truly connect with patients whose experiences stretch the boundaries of conventional understanding.”–
American Journal of Psychotherapy“This book presents some very interesting insights into how Holocaust survivors narrate their experiences.... By the end of the book, the reader has a good grasp of the variety of forms of recollecting. This is a good read.”–
Dimensions“Unique and remarkably compelling....a psychological document of enormous significance.”–
From the Foreword by Robert Coles“An outstanding book--distinctive, gripping, moving in its testimony, and utterly lucid, honest, and timely in the analysis it provides. [Greenspan] shows us a great many things of immense importance.”–
John K. Roth Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College“[This book] takes us into a whole new conceptual realm of sympathetic listening. Greenspan moves us beyond the celebratory and psychiatric discourses that tend to govern the way we think and talk about survivors and enables us to hear them as if for the first time.”–
Alvin Rosenfeld Director of Jewish Studies, Indiana University“[A]n unforgettable book--poetic, pioneering, and instructive throughout--a virtual thesaurus on how to listen to survivors and how to understand what they say.”–
Henry Krystal Professor of Psychiatry, Michigan State University“Throughout this book...theory is encompassed by direct encounters, and these are conveyed with exceptional power and grace. The result is an incomparable work: No one has measured the depths of survivors' accounts more insightfully and discretely, with more scrupulous attention to detail, context, and implication, than Greenspan.”–
Sidney Bolkosky Professor of History University of Michigan- Dearborn
