Ashley Meyer "To Laugh or to Die: The Role of Jewish Humor in the Shoah"
Topic:
Jewish coping mechanisms during the Shoah (Holocaust), with a focus on the use of humor.
Why and How I Came to this Topic:
I wanted to understand how Jewish victims coped with the mental and physical strain of the Shoah. Humor has helped me to cope with difficult experiences in my life, and I wanted to see if the principle applied to Shoah victims.
Sources:
My sources are primarily diaries written in the ghettos at Terezin, Warsaw, and Lodz.
Travel and Funding I Have Done/Received:
I received a SURF scholarship and used it to research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.