Premium
TO CATCH THE ECHO: RETHINKING ACTS OF WITNESSING TO THE SHOAH
Author(s) -
Schwarcz Vera
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
history and theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.169
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1468-2303
pISSN - 0018-2656
DOI - 10.1111/hith.10770
Subject(s) - ignorance , the holocaust , narrative , memoir , literature , context (archaeology) , aesthetics , history , psychoanalysis , sociology , philosophy , art , epistemology , psychology , archaeology , theology
In light of recent revelations about global ignorance and disbelief regarding the Holocaust, first‐hand testimonies acquire fresh significance. Two disparate books frame this discussion of how writings by survivors serve to deepen our understanding of the Shoah. Otto Dov Kulka's memoir, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death , is a carefully crafted account by a professional historian who survived as a child in Auschwitz. Thomas Trezise's work, Witnessing Witnessing , is an analytical inquiry into the literary and epistemic issues that frame different genres of testimony ranging from video to poetry. Kulka's slender account is situated in the context of other works by survivors, including Saul Friedländer's When Memory Comes , Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After , and a more recent work by Joseph Polak, After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring . The emphasis in this discussion is upon the challenges that survivors face in articulating horror, especially to readers in the twenty‐first century. Trezise's more voluminous work is based upon the literary and philosophical theories of Adorno, Levinas, and Freud, among others. The question raised in this essay focuses upon which of these narrative strategies might work better to convey the complex meanings of the Shoah after the generation of survivors has departed from the historical scene. In the end, the halting words of those who went through the death camps is all we have to counter the ignorance and disbelief spreading around the world. Kulka's book, combining memories, dreams, and art works, fosters an imaginative encounter with inconceivable historical realities. Trezise's theoretical engagement with indexicality and with the phatic function of language helps us to understand the impact of testimonies within the scholarly literature. It does not, however, point a clear path toward conveying the importance of the Holocaust to the public at large. For this purpose, we need books such as Kulka's that enable the generation after the Holocaust to listen to silences embedded in survivor narratives. These silences must be carried forward in time, along with the ethical mandate not to forget the atrocities of the Shoah. If we can embrace this mission, we may be able to diminish the reign of hate running amuck today.