Abstract

A major post-Holocaust psychoethical dilemma seems to be the product of a collective repression of a long pre–World War II history that has almost disappeared from modern memory. In this forgotten past, the contested victim trope—"as sheep to slaughter"—that aroused much concern in the wake of the Holocaust had in fact been alive for centuries. Amazingly, its negation, the call for resistance "not as sheep led to slaughter," has had an even longer history, going back to tenth-century Italy. By reconstructing major points of the trajectory of these opposites during the past thousand years, this article lays bare the workings of "selective memory" in the making of Jewish historical consciousness and ponders whether partial silencing or forgetting is indeed necessary for surviving trauma, both collective and individual.

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