THE REPRESENTATION OF TRAUMA IN HOLOCAUST LITERATURE
Keywords:
Holocaust, trauma, memory, silence, storytelling, survivalAbstract
This article explores the representation of trauma in key Holocaust texts Elie Wiesel’s Night, Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, and Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After focusing on how these works convey the psychological and emotional aftermath of the Holocaust. Through narrative techniques such as fragmented storytelling, non-linear timelines, and symbolic imagery, these authors illustrate the struggles of memory, identity, and survival. Drawing on trauma theory by Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra, the study examines how these texts depict the silencing effects of trauma and the challenge of representing unspeakable horrors. The article argues that Holocaust literature plays a vital role in preserving collective memory and underscores the ethical responsibility of authors in depicting trauma to ensure the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten.
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References
1. Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang, 2006.
2. Levi, Primo. If This Is a Man (also known as Survival in Auschwitz). Translated by Stuart Woolf, Everyman’s Library, 1996.
3. Delbo, Charlotte. Auschwitz and After. Translated by Rosette C. Lamont, Yale University Press, 1995.
4. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
5. LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
6. Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Routledge, 1992.
7. Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012.
8. Lang, Berel. Holocaust Representation: Art, Aesthetics, and the Jewish Question. Routledge, 2000.
9. Friedlander, Saul. Memory, History, and the Extermination of the Jews of Europe. Indiana University Press, 1993.
