Through Anotherâs Eyes: An Auschwitz Survivor Inspires His Biographer
Popular lecturer and biographer Joshua M. Greene discusses the hardship of writing the biographies of Holocaust survivors, and the biography that convinced him to continue writing.
Author:
Apr 18, 2021
For the past 30 years, my career as a biographer has taken me inside the horrific experiences of Holocaust survivors, and eight years ago, after writing a dozen such biographies, I’d had enough. The Holocaust is not a story about the perseverance of the human spirit. It is not an ode to our capacity for heroism and bravery. The Holocaust is not an action-adventure movie. It is the story of mass murder and unmitigated suffering, and by 2014, I could no longer justify creating books that left readers with nightmares. I was done promoting darkness. Then the phone rang.