A University of Essex researcher is giving holocaust survivors a new platform by studying how their eyewitness accounts were translated for western audiences.
Dr Joanna Rzepa will explore how translation, censorship and publishing decisions have influenced the understanding of the holocaust as well as what we know about Polish and Jewish experiences.
Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, she hopes her work will help to expand and diversify known holocaust stories.
She also hopes to draw attention to less recognised narratives which show the complexities of Jewish survival in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Dr Rzepa, from Essex’s Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies said: “We tend to rely on canonical accounts like those of Anne Frank and Primo Levi for our understanding of the holocaust, but these only tell part of the story.
“Witness accounts from western Europe don’t speak about life in the ghettos because there were no ghettos in the west, or the mass shootings by Nazi killing units which took place only in eastern Europe.”
By exploring the role translation and publishing played in whether or not Polish voices are remembered, Dr Rzepa hopes to shed new light on the neglected experiences from eastern Europe and inform a broader understanding of the holocaust across the continent.
To find out more about the project, visit Project will shed light on Polish Holocaust stories | University of Essex
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