This book reassesses contemporary Holocaust testimony, focusing on the power of language and place to shape personal narrative. Oral histories of Lithuanian Jews serve as the textual base for this exploration. Comparing the remembrances of Holocaust victims who remained in Lithuania with those who resettled in Israel and North America after World War II, the analysis reveals meaningful differences based on where they chose to live out their postwar lives and whether their language of testimony was Yiddish, English, or Hebrew. The differences between their testimonies relate to notions of love, justice, community—and how the Holocaust did violence to these aspects of the self. The argument illuminates the multiple places that the Holocaust can fill in Jewish historical memory. Beyond the particular Jewish case, the book raises fundamental questions about how people draw from their linguistic and physical environments in order to understand their own suffering. The analysis challenges the assumption of a universal vocabulary for describing and healing human pain.

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