The aim of this paper is to analyze notes written by Zalmen Gradowski during his time as a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau by means of the concept of the moral witness proposed by Avishai Margalit in The Ethics of Memory. Applying this general but well-conceived concept to an individual problematic testimony allows one to refine the matter of context that shapes moral testimony, and at the same time enables a systematic analysis of Gradowski’s moral testimony. This paper formulates further observations and questions regarding the concept of the moral witness, thus taking the paradigmatic moral witness to a more complex level, and then creates a template for a structured analysis of the especially subtle phenomenon that is individual moral testimony.
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