Abstract

Singing played a central role in the earliest Holocaust survivor testimonies. Yet what does the act of singing do for a survivor in relation to testimony? A singing voice (rather than a spoken one) can surmount language barriers through melodic or harmonic elements which perform critical affective labor. In considering song as a vehicle of testimony, this chapter brings the work of two prominent female singers who were persecuted by the Nazi Regime into conversation. Fasia Jansen, an Afro-German peace activist and Lin Jaldati, a Yiddish-singing folk musician from Amsterdam, each used their voice to advocate for their respective communities. By performing songs of the camps and ghettos for different political ends and strategic Cold War aims, Jansen and Jaldati carefully honed their images as singing survivors, encouraging audience participation to craft their own canons of anti-Fascist song.