johannes k.

if i entered arnon grunberg's competition this would be my entry :

for several years i read nothing but books about the holocaust and holocaust testimonies and listened first hand, in person and on video, to hundreds of stories of survivors.

and then at some point i realised that thing, maybe you've had it too, about the testimonies that are missing and that we will never hear, that couldn't be written and cannot be read : the testimonies of the terrifying and ... what word would you use? ... let's go with profound ... experience of suffering of the ones who did not survive.

and those are the testimonies that are missing from your book and every book that has been written — nor will they be in any of the books that are yet to be written.

you could send it in and pretend you wrote it!

but it wouldn't win because the question you have to answer in 150 words or less is : who did arnon forget?. i thought it was : which testimonies are missing?. that was probably unconscious wishful thinking on my part about what the question is — which is not unusual for me, in a wide range of contexts.