Zalmen Gradowski’s notes in the light of Avishai Margalit’s idea of moral witness

Abstract

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.