Constructing a collective memory of the Holocaust

Michael Berger, the author's father, was interned at an SS military camp at Moderowka, a concentration camp at Szebnie, and the Auschwitz camps at Birkenau and Buna-Monowitz. Shlomo Berger, the author's uncle, escaped the camps passing as a Christian with a Polish construction crew and as a member of the Polish Partisans and the Soviet Army. This compelling story is one of success through luck, daring, and skill in the face of tremendous adversity. Ronald Berger uses the life history method to bring the brothers' experiences to life and to explore a central problem of general social theory: the relationship between human agency and social structure. His approach offers a distinctly sociological alternative to a body of literature that has been dominated by psychological theorizing and that has often characterized Jews in overly negative or heroic terms. Berger addresses the influences of prewar conditions as a factor in wartime adjustment and offers some observations on memories of suffering and the implications for contemporary victimization politics and postmodern social thought. . This book will be an important supplement for college and university courses on Holocaust and genocide studies, Jewish studies, race and ethnic relations, historical sociology, and social problems.