Observant Jews live according to not one but two calendars. The Jewish calendar makes it possible for Jews to stay connected to holidays, the Sabbath, anniversaries and community. During the Holocaust, the persecutors uprooted Jewish communities and deprived them of basic physical and cultural necessities, making it often impossible simply to keep track of the day's date. This presentation looks at the calendar in relation to the Holocaust, including calendars (and relevant diaries) composed by Jews in hiding, in ghettos and in concentration camps. Dr. Rosen also looks at the calendar's role in post-Holocaust commemoration, fiction and historiography.

 

Alan Rosen lectures at the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, and other Holocaust study centers. He is the author of The Wonder of Their Voices: 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder (Oxford UP, 2010) and Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism and the Problem of English (UP of Nebraska, 2008).