Naked Victims, Dressed-up Memory: The Escape from Auschwitz and the Israeli Historiography

First discusses the five Jewish escapees from Auschwitz, including Walter Rosenberg (Rudolf Vrba) and Alfred Wetzler (Josef Lanik) in April 1944. These two fled to their native Slovakia and informed the heads of the Jewish community about Auschwitz. Hungarian leaders, however, did not publicize the information. Asks why Israeli historians failed to mention the names of these heroic men and their deeds. This silence was broken only in response to Holocaust deniers who wrote of the "myth of Auschwitz". Attributes this to unwillingness to raise embarrassing questions about the Judenräte, both in Hungary and in Slovakia, particularly since the head of the Slovak Judenrat, Oskar Neumann, had made aliyah and headed the Association of Czechoslovakian Immigrants in Israel. Vrba had criticized such leaders for their conspiracy of silence and its disastrous results. Stresses that Vrba represents a Holocaust narrative that challenges the hegemonic "sheep theory" of Israeli Holocaust historiography.