This chapter introduces the principal contribution of the volume to Holocaust Studies, the concept of “zero generation” Holocaust literature, arguing that this category is defined by two distinct features: first, that it was written by those who died during the Holocaust and, second, that the authors of these texts knew at the time of their writing that they would die. Writers as diverse as the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi (The Drowned and the Saved, 1987) and Dara Horn (People Love Dead Jews, 2021) have both argued that these kinds of texts have been overlooked in favor of survivor memoirs, but that the focus on survivor memoirs represents a potential misprision of the Holocaust itself: the most commonly read and taught accounts of the Holocaust were written by survivors (Levi, Elie Wiesel) or those who died but did not, at the time of their writing, know they would (Anne Frank). Texts by people who died in the Holocaust come from across the concentrationary universe: ghettos, occupied cities, transit camps, cattle cars, and death camps. These texts, in various forms and genres, then, can be seen as a unified corpus with a unique perspective on what it means to die in the Holocaust, something survivors, by definition, never experienced. This also requires new theories of reading, since common models for reading Holocaust literature, such as memory studies and trauma theory, posit that significant events can only be understood in hindsight. Zero generation texts were written during the event itself and when its conclusion remained unknown; analysis of the immediacy, spontaneity, and unrevisability of these texts can bring out affective and philosophical positions that differ from those of the survivor writing after the War’s end: the texts are more fragmentary in shape; less concerned with drawing morals or lessons; more concerned with the complex fluctuation of emotions when approaching death: anger, revenge, hopelessness, or resignation.