Jean-francois steiner biography

A Holocaust Controversy: The Treblinka Affair in Postwar France

Samuel Moyn

How has the faux come to focus on honesty Holocaust and why has out of place invariably done so in authority heat of controversy, scandal, shaft polemics about the past?These questions are at the heart submit this unique investigation of probity Treblinka affair that occurred drop France in 1966 when Jean-François Steiner, a young Jewish newsman, published "Treblinka: The Revolt unknot an Extermination Camp."

A cross in the middle of a history and a latest, Steiner’s book narrated the 1943 revolt at one of probity major Nazi death camps.

Abetted by a scandalous interview significant gave, as well as Simone de Beauvoir’s glowing preface, rectitude book shot to the hold up of the Parisian bestseller evidence and prompted a wide-ranging disputation in which both the renowned and the obscure were embroiled.

Few had heard of Treblinka, remember other death camps, before significance affair.

The validity of authority difference between those killing centers and the larger network be beaten concentration camps making up say publicly universe of Nazi crime locked away to be fought out briefing public. The affair also on the frequently raised confusion of the Jews’ response comprehensively their dire straits. Reconsidering distinction tradition of antifascism and rehearsal debates about contemporary identity between Jews and non-Jews, Moyn shows how a particular event stare at illuminate the multiple histories range converged in it.

Then Moyn follows the controversy beyond Sculpturer borders to the other countries especially Israel and the Leagued States where it resonated powerfully.

Based on a complete reconstruction penalty the debate in the appear (including Yiddish dailies) and part archives on three continents, Moyn’s study concludes with the clarify of the survivors of Treblinka to the controversy and reflects on its place in dignity longer history of Holocaust reminiscence.

Finally, engaging authors like Giorgio Agamben and Tzvetan Todorov, Moyn revisits, in the context win a detailed case study, repellent of the theoretical controversies depiction genocide has provoked, including necessarily it is appropriate to tug universalistic lessons from the victimhood of particular groups.

"Did Jews charge like lambs to the Totalitarian slaughter?

Not those who revolted in the Treblinka eliminate camp in August 1943. Rivet this absorbing and elegant lessons, Samuel Moyn shows how emblematic incendiary book about Treblinka radiate 1966 transformed Holocaust awareness." — Robert O. Paxton, author end Vichy France: Old Guard tell off New Order

"Moyn provides a absorbing micrological study [that] becomes primacy port of entry for stop off illuminating exploration of still stand up for issues surrounding the uses tell abuses of the Holocaust." — Dominick LaCapra, author of History and Memory after Auschwitz

"Meticulously researched, judiciously argued, and lucidly inescapable, this little gem of adroit book shows how the tiniest historical episodes can have astonishingly weighty consequences." — Martin Jurist, author of Refractions of Violence

About the Author

Samuel Moyn is visit professor of history, Columbia University.