Deborah Lee Prescott. Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs: A Critical Study. Jefferson:
McFarland & Co., 2010. pp. $45.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7864-4817-3.
Reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney (Claremont School of Theology)
Published on H-Judaic (October, 2010)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman
Genesis and Modern Holocaust Midrash
In her recent study, Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust
Memoirs, Deborah Lee Prescott examines autobiographies written by Jewish survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust) in an attempt to trace the use of biblical imagery
from the book of Genesis to describe their experiences.
She understands her work as an exercise in intertextuality that will shed light on both the text of Genesis and
the attempted Nazi genocide. Presuming that rabbis and
other trained Jewish professionals would naturally employ such imagery, she concentrates on the memoirs of
lay persons, whether religious or not, as the bases for
her study. Following Primo Levi, Prescott suggests that
such memoirs written by Shoah victims constitute a “new
Bible” that aids in explaining or contextualizing their ordeals (p. 5).
ter of the term. Popularized by Elie Wiesel because of its
fiery imagery, the term has been rejected by subsequent
interpreters who point out that the “holocaust offering”
(Hebrew, ‘olah; see Leviticus 1) functioned as a means
to maintain or to restore the relationship between human beings and God. Rejecting any implication of positive purpose, the Hebrew term Shoah, “destruction,” is
now employed to describe the event. She rejects the term
based on the mistaken belief that it refers only to natural disaster that does not connect the twentieth-century
event with others in Jewish history. But her understanding of the term is based on a reading of Zephaniah 1 and
not other occurrences, such as Isaiah 6, where the term
is employed to describe the destruction of Israel or Judah
at the hands of foreign invaders.
Throughout the study, Prescott maintains that three
key elements must be considered: Holocaust (Shoah);
Autobiography; and Midrash. By Holocaust (Shoah), she
means the deliberate attempt by the German Nazi government to exterminate Judaism and all Jews as a primary goal in establishing the Thousand Year Reich. Although the Nazis targeted other groups as well, such as
communists, Slavs, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, and others, the elimination
of the Jews was the most pressing concern of the Nazi
government. Her introduction to the Shoah is a rather
basic account. Her use of the term, “Holocaust,” however, raises some questions. Although she is aware that
the term refers to a whole burnt sacrifice in biblical literature, she does not seem to grasp the problematic charac-
By “Autobiography,” Prescott presupposes an attempt
to recount an entire life. But she notes that “memoir”
is the choice to focus on a specific time period, making it the better term. She notes that scholars have traditionally seen autobiography as a non-literary genre
not worthy of study, but her deliberate attention to intertextuality by allusion to or dialogue with other literary works, makes such autobiography worthy of study.
But one may ask whether the intertextual use of Genesis alone–or any other biblical books for that matter–
justifies her work. As she rightly notes, the choice to
write such Shoah memoirs was a choice to engage in an
ontological decision that challenges the author to convey
an inexpressible event that defies comprehension. Although most survivors remained silent for years follow1
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ing their experiences of the Shoah, many have chosen to
speak out later in life to tell the world, which remained
largely silent on the matter both during the event and
for years afterward, about the depth of evil into which it
had plunged. Prescott’s work itself is an important element of such efforts to inform the world of the reality of
the Shoah. As many have observed, the world’s silence
was an important element in encouraging the Nazis to
pursue their agenda; they believed that ultimately, the
world did not care about the extermination of the Jews.
Of course, one may ask if the Shoah was in fact only a
Nazi genocide? Or one in which other elements of the
world participated? In the face of contemporary efforts
to deny the Shoah by Iran and other elements of the Islamic world as well as by the various anti-Semitic elements of the western Christian world, the testimony of
those who experienced the Shoah becomes an essential
element in preserving the realities of the Shoah and hopefully in preventing such an event from ever taking place
again. Such an agenda becomes the true justification for
Prescott’s work.
command of God, becomes a means to raise the question
of God’s silence toward–or acquiescence to–the atrocities of the Shoah. Genesis 32:23-33, the narrative concerning Jacob’s wrestling with the man at the Wadi Jabbok, expresses the survivors’ attempts to struggle with
the realities of the evil. Many returned to their homes
to find the unremitting hostility of their former neighbors; others changed their identities in the aftermath of
the Shoah, either to escape or to begin a new life. Genesis 4:1-26, the narrative concerning Cain’s murder of his
brother Abel, becomes a metaphor for the Nazi murder
of Jews.
In her epilogue, Prescott reflects that the book of Exodus might have been a better choice for her study, particularly because of its redemptive theme. But she concludes that Genesis is a fitting choice because of its capacity to be used for both personal and cultural selfreflection. She continues by indicating that Genesis is
only the first book of the Bible, and that other books,
e.g., Job, Esther, Psalms, and all of the others, have the
potential for such self-reflection in the aftermath of the
Shoah. She understands throughout this discussion that
such self-reflection leads to rebuilding. Here we should
note that Judaism rebuilt itself after earlier catastrophes,
e.g., the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile; the destruction of the Second Temple; the expulsion from Spain; and others, and it will and must do
so again. She need not limit herself to the Bible. (Perhaps
her focus on the Bible is the product of a Christian religious or cultural identity, but one cannot know that when
many Jews carry Christian names like Sweeney! Regardless of her own identity, she should avoid the term,
“Judeo-Christian,” which implies that Judaism does not
have its own distinct identity in relation to Christianity.). The Talmud, the Kabbalistic literature, the philosophical literature, the Haskalah literature, and modern
Israeli literature emerge as potential resources for such
an endeavor. Indeed, the mandate to rebuild becomes an
essential aspect of grappling with the Shoah, particularly
if the Shoah memoirs she discusses here become the “new
Bible” that she envisions. They are not in themselves adequate to form a “new Bible,” as Jewish identity cannot
be based solely on the identity of the victim. Rather, the
victim must overcome the trauma, and the Shoah memoirs studied by Prescott form the starting point for such
efforts, but they are not the final words on the matter.
By “Midrash,” she refers to the traditional rabbinic
means for interpreting the meaning of scripture. Following a brief discussion of modern midrashic scholars
(I must note the erroneous spelling of the name of my
former undergraduate professor, Gary G. Porton, on pp.
18, 191, and 195), Prescott correctly concludes that the
purpose of midrash is to make ancient scriptures meaningful in the present. Midrashic exegesis in part demands
that Jews remember the One God of Israel and God’s expectations, but following Sigmund Freud, the context of
the Shoah also means that Jews remember such trauma
as a means to grapple with and overcome the evil experienced.
The core of Prescott’s study is a series of six chapters that each takes up a Genesis narrative and examines the use of that particular narrative in the memoirs
of Shoah survivors. Genesis 3-4, the narrative concerning
the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden,
comes to represent “Paradise Lost” as Jews suffered the
trauma of concentration camp internment and imminent
death. Genesis 6-9, the narrative concerning the flood
in which the entire world was killed with the exception
of Noah, his family, and pairs of each of the animals on
earth, becomes a metaphor for the horrors of the cattle
cars used to transport the victims to the camps. Genesis
11:1-9, the Tower of Babel story, expresses the challenges
to survive faced by many Jews, who spoke a variety of
languages, to understand the German language in which
orders were always given. Genesis 22:1-19, the Akedah
in which Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac at the
In the end, Prescott has provided a valuable resource
for grappling with the evil of the Shoah through the eyes
and the words of its survivors. May it aid in achieving
its purpose of ensuring that such atrocity never happens
again.
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Citation: Marvin A. Sweeney. Review of Prescott, Deborah Lee, Imagery from Genesis in Holocaust Memoirs: A
Critical Study. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. October, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30616
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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