Language:
French
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
Tsafon; revue d'études juives du Nord
Angaben zur Quelle:
84 (2022) 51-66
Keywords:
Klemperer, Victor, Diaries
;
Cohn, Willy, Diaries
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives
;
Jews Diaries
Abstract:
The German-Jewish diarists Victor Klemperer and Willy Cohn kept diaries to preserve their individual identity and freedom of expression above all else against the National Socialist regime. Their diaristic details reveal the victims’ view of the permanent strangulation of their space of action. Everyday life, whose ephemeral character the diarists try to capture in their notes, is at the same time subject to permanent existential anguish. In this context, everyday life represents a place where one finds the security and order one longs for, but which can nevertheless be suddenly struck by death. The omnipresent terror is described as random and arbitrary, so that it is impossible for the victims to assess and predict what will happen to them and when. The two authors concerned thus become vulnerable objects, who have to submit to the cruelty of the regime’s whims and try to find compensatory strategies.
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