Memoirs In Gerda Weissmann's All But My Life

Memoirs give a personal and emotion view of a historical event that a textbook cannot provide. However, the author’s memory may be distorted and biased at times. Memoirs such as Black Dog of Fate, by Peter Balakian, and All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann, provide us with a great deal of historical information about mass violence. These memoirs allow us readers to have an inside look at these historical events. Memoirs are a great way to learn about a historical event and keep you engaged in the book, but there are some setbacks with them. I am going to argue that some memoirist’s memories are not entirely truthful, rather it be because of loss of memory, or because they try to make the story more intriguing. Memoirs can also be problematic

When reading these books, you can see many survival strategies, as well as coping methods. In Black Dog of Fate, Peter was not part of the Armenian Genocide directly, so he did not have survival strategies himself, but you can see how he spread the word of the genocide throughout his life, and this book is just one example of this. Towards the end of the book there is an excerpt on peter’s travels to Syria and Der Zor, the final destination of the death march and the main killing site for Armenians. Peter writes, “Then I began, without thinking, picking up handfuls of dirt, sifting out the bones and stuffing them in my pockets.” Peter believes since these bones are his ancestors, it is acceptable to take and to continue to spread the word about the Armenian genocide, which I believe is one way how he copes with this horrific event. In All But My Life, Gerda survived the Holocaust through the indirect help of her friends and family. The main thing that I believe aided in Gerda’s survival were the letters that Arthur wrote her. When Arthur left, he told Gerda to be strong for him and for her parents, at that moment you could tell Arthur was a role model for Gerda, she looked up to him. “Arthur’s letters came frequently that spring. They were something to look forward too.” As you can see, these letters kept Gerda strong, which she needed especially after being separated from her parents. One dreadful day, Gerda lost the rest of her family, they were split up, unknown if they would ever see her again. Another reason I believe Gerda survived the Holocaust and the death march was because she hoped one day that she would be reunited with her parents and Arthur, sadly, that day never