https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8756-732X
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ABSTRACT
This article explores the complex relationship between fact and fiction in Holocaust narratives, focusing on the often-overlooked realm of microhistory. By applying Gérard Genette’s approach to narrative discourse, it scrutinizes Christopher R. Browning’s Remembering Survival and Omer Bartov’s Anatomy of a Genocide, thereby underscoring the distinction between microhistorical accounts and grand narratives. The core argument posits that microhistories, which emphasize first-person testimonies and bottom-up perspectives, introduce an additional layer of complexity to the line between fiction and nonfiction. Unlike macrohistories that center on broad social, economic, or political processes, microhistorical approaches delve into the lives of ordinary people and incorporate fictional elements to a greater extent. Consequently, the article emphasizes the significance of narrative theory in Holocaust historiography and explores the challenges of narrating the Holocaust through a microhistorical lens, which intensifies the use of fictional elements.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
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23. Friedländer, Probing the Limits.
24. Friedländer, Probing the Limits, 3.
25. Ginzburg, “Just One Witness.”
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34. Lüdtke, Alltagsgeschichte.
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36. Magnússon and Szijártó, What is Microhistory?, 5.
37. Magnússon and Szijártó, What is Microhistory?, 19.
38. Magnússon, “The Singularization of History,” 701–35.
39. Pomata, “Telling the Truth,” 35.
40. Magnússon and Szijártó, What is Microhistory?, 24.
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48. Browning, Remembering Survival, 291.
49. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 9.
50. Genette, “Fictional Narrative,” 758.
51. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 35–6.
52. Herrnstein Smith, “Narrative Versions,” 228.
53. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 86.
54. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 185.
55. Browning, Remembering Survival, 142.
56. Genette, “Narrative Discourse Revisited,” 33.
57. Munslow, “The Historian as an Author,” 83.
58. Genette, “Fictional Narrative,” 761; Hamburger, Die Logik der Dichtung.
59. Browning, Remembering Survival, 219.
60. Browning, Remembering Survival, 115.
61. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 57.
62. Genette, “Fictional Narrative,” 761.
63. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 148.
64. Browning, Remembering Survival, 46.
65. Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide, 197.
66. Genette, “Fictional Narrative,” 766.
67. Browning, Remembering Survival, 142.
68. Browning, Remembering Survival, 222.
69. Schwarz “Holocaust Narrative,“ 222.
70. Zalc and Bruttmann, Microhistories of the Holocaust.
71. Hansen-Glucklich, Holocaust Memory Reframed.
72. Koselleck, “Standortbindung und Zeitlichkeit,“ 17.
73. Berkhofer, Beyond the Great Story.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Radu Harald Dinu
Radu Harald Dinu is an assistant professor in history at the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University (Sweden). He received his PhD in history from The Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University and a MA degree in East European History from Leipzig University (Germany). His research encompasses a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the modern history of Eastern Europe to the field of disability history.