There and un-there: empathy in poetic encounters with Holocaust survivor interviews

Abstract

ABSTRACT During their interviews with the Visual History Archive, hundreds of Holocaust survivors recite poems. This article examines empathy in poetry written and read by two poet-survivors, Martha Osvat and Jacob Rosenberg, as well as empathy in two poems I write after viewing their interviews. Recognizing the dual potential of empathy to help and harm, both the poems the survivors recite and my response poems variously request and refuse empathy in a process I term empathetic dissonance. This academic-creative paper argues that empathy is suspect in the context of the Holocaust and probes the ethical boundaries of approaching another’s traumatic experiences.