Since 1945 countless survivors, witnesses, and scholars have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the Holocaust would not be forgotten or ignored, that Primo Levi’s great fear would not become a reality. Through their efforts, they have collected and preserved mountains of documentary evidence and thousands of eyewitness testimonials. While such evidence provides incontrovertible proof of the reality of the Holocaust, it has not made the Holocaust any easier to understand. Nor has it reduced its moral complexity. As Levi’s account made clear, part of the evil of the Final Solution was the intense pressure it placed on its victims to participate in the system’s immorality, to choose between human compassion and survival.

Each survivor’s experience of the Holocaust was unique. Each survivor faced his or her own set of choices, and, after liberation, each faced the difficult, often impossible, task of making sense of his or her own experiences. As you watch the personal testimony of Holocaust survivors in this assignment, think about the choices they faced. How does each individual account contribute to a larger understanding of the nature and meaning of the Holocaust?