Extract: Nation, Memory, Myth by Steve Vizard
Posted on 11 Jun 2025
How does myth generate meaning for a nation and its citizens? How does a national myth transform into symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship?
Mark Verstandig
Mark Verstandig’s compelling epic spans pre-Holocaust Jewish culture in Eastern Europe and its post-war reformation in Australia.
His personal story interweaves the vast forces of politics and history with intimate details of the shtetl—from the pre-war intricacies of Galician society and the textures of a traditional Jewish religious education, to the agonizing contradictions of Polish–Jewish relations and the complexities of post-war Jewish politics.
His account of the displaced persons camps where ‘transit Jews’ awaited their chance to emigrate is a significant contribution to a little-known aspect of post-war history.
With his gift for observation and his acute powers of analysis, Mark Verstandig has achieved the rare feat of telling the story of his people through its own history. Part autobiography, part Holocaust literature, part sociological analysis, I Rest My Case is a fine achievement.
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