Along the Edge of Annihilation: the Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary - David Patterson

Along the Edge of Annihilation: the Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary - David Patterson"Dear finder, search everywhere, in every inch of soil. Tons of documents are buried under it, mine and those of other prisoners, which will throw light on everything that was happening here." SALMEN GRADOWSKI, Auschwitz This extraordinary book is based on more than fifty diaries of Jewish Holocaust victims of all ages, written while the events described were actually taking place. Many of the writers did not survive. Patterson's book is unique not

"Dear finder, search everywhere, in every inch of soil. Tons of documents are buried under it, mine and those of other prisoners, which will throw light on everything that was happening here." —SALMEN GRADOWSKI, Auschwitz

This extraordinary book is based on more than fifty diaries of Jewish Holocaust victims of all ages, written while the events described were actually taking place.

Many of the writers did not survive. Patterson's book is unique not only in the number of diaries and original texts it examines but also in the questions it raises and in the approach it takes from within Jewish traditions and contexts.

Patterson has organized his book around a series of themes that lead to a deeper understanding of the meaning of these works for both their writers and their readers, affirming the Holocaust diary as a form of spiritual resistance.

Throughout, he draws upon his impressive knowledge of Jewish texts, ancient and modern-Torah, Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, the medieval commentators, the Hasidic masters, and modern Jewish philosophers and thinkers.

In Along the Edge of Annihilation David Patterson illuminates the spiritual and physical devastation experienced by the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust.

He shows how they chose life and the spirit of life in the midst of the Inferno.

"Patterson helps us to understand the various factors that motivated individuals to take up their pens even at the risk of their lives. Christians and Jews will be deeply moved and deeply educated by this work." —MILTON TEICHMAN, Marist College

David Patterson holds the Bornblum Chair of Excellence in Judaic Studies and is Director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. His numerous books include Sun Turned to Darkness:

Memory and Recovery in the Holocaust Memoir; In Dialogue and Dilemma with Elie Wiesel; and The Shriek of Silence: A Phenomenology of the Holocaust Novel.

University of Washington Press 1999, paperback