HISTORY AND MEMORY       1100w

HISTORY AND MEMORY- WHICH ONE TO BELIEVE?

The people who survived the Holocaust are slowly disappearing. The number of these survivors is decreasing drastically year by year. Does that mean the memory of these brave fighters leave this world with them? Yes? No? This is where the role of history enters the image. Recorded documents, facts, statistics, writings out of archives are all everlasting pieces of the past. These documents on their own fail to present the undented picture of the dreadful events occurred. The emotions and sorrows felt by the individuals are completely overlooked and sidestepped in historical recordings. History being claimed as an objective piece tries to be as unbiased as possible, which if argued about can be questioned, as selective choosing of certain facts is present. While reading a history textbook I have wondered myself about the cold presentation of breath-taking events. After all who decides what is put into it? What is relevant and what isn’t? The past itself is always an objective matter, but as soon as it is presented by an individual it evolves to being subjective. Although history provides the background knowledge to individual memories, as seen in ‘The Fiftieth Gate’, “I try narrating the stories in his own style…” says Baker in the hope of triggering some of his father’s memories by the use of his documented