Language:
English
Year of publication:
2000
Titel der Quelle:
European Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
33,2 (2000) 81-103
Keywords:
Levi, Primo,
;
Kofman, Sarah
;
Jewish children in the Holocaust
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Rescue
;
Holocaust survivors
Abstract:
Stresses the fatal potential, rather than the cathartic nature, of survivor testimony. Deals with the cases of Sarah Kofman and Primo Levi, who eventually committed suicide. Traces the protective aspects of a certain form of repression or indirection, showing how "guardian texts" helped these two survivors deal with their very different Holocaust experiences and the guilt they felt. Writing/testifying in the first person led to the return of guilt, not only vis-à-vis non-survivors but also vis-à-vis the reader. Rosenblum, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notes that Kofman called for psychoanalysts to play an engaged role as "interlocutors" who might help the person who testifies to remain among the living.
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