Reconstructing a Life: An examination of female Jewish Holocaust survivors life writing

Directly following the end of the Second World War, accounts in the forms of autobiographies and memoirs were published by survivors of the Holocaust, and a significant proportion of these accounts were authored by women. Although, it was not until the mid-1980s that historians began to examine the experiences of women during the Holocaust by using female-authored survivor accounts. By doing so, these academics successfully reinserted the experiences of women into the historical narrative of the Holocaust. However, very few of these scholars have decided to make female-authored survivor accounts the focus of their research. This study will examine three life narratives authored by Jewish female survivors of the Holocaust who all immigrated to Australia between 1948 and 1950. These women's accounts will be examined using a life history approach- which will see the accounts they give of the Holocaust examined alongside their accounts of their pre-war and post-war lives. By examining these women's accounts as whole texts, this study reveals the complex and varied ways in which these three women have constructed their memories of the past in the present, and how their Holocaust experiences and present role as a survivor of the Holocaust has shaped their life narratives.