Thanks for sharing this - since the Globe created its two-class website I've stopped perusing it online, and I refuse to buy it as a result of their decision! Indeed, in the case of the Shoah - and more recent genocides - so many entire communities were utterly wiped out or left but a handful of traumatised survivors attempting to make new lives somehow - that unearthing the past of individuals, families, social groups and communities is an essential part of the process of remembering - and a key role of those of us devoted to "history from below" (histoire subalterne in French). Not just an undifferentiated mass of murdered humans but many different lives who were cut short by genocide.
For similar work of remembering on a more recent genocide, view the film "The Haunted Land" about the genocidal massacres of Mayan villagers in Guatemala.
An important aspect of the piece is the survivors' unwillingness to speak of the horrors inflicted on their families, friends or communities, whether as small as Bocki or as large as Lodz or Warsaw. Post-traumatic stress, having to forget in order to live, a desire not to be "singled out" as a "victim" - there are many reasons for this. They make the task of remembering urgent while there are still survivors capable of telling their story or evidence of their lives.