More Than Mazel? Luck and Agency in Surviving the Holocaust
The canonical explanation for how Jews survived during the Holocaust involves some form of luck. To explore and deepen an understanding of episodic moments of luck, this article presents and discusses survivor Jerry Rawicki's close calls with death during the Holocaust. The first author
examines Jerry's perspective as a survivor and her own perspective as a collaborative witness to his stories, as well as how these stories fit together within the broader literature about luck and survival. She suggests possible consequences of regarding luck as the sole explanation of survival
and contends that agency and luck can go hand in hand even under oppressive structural conditions, such as the Holocaust. She concludes by reflecting on why Jerry and she might understand survival differently and on the importance of considering both positions in compassionate collaborative
research.
Keywords: Holocaust; Jewish resistance; agency; collaborative witnessing; luck
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Communication, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA 2: St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
Publication date: 01 March 2014
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