Trivialisation and singularisation of death in the concentrationary literature

Abstract

In Nazi concentration camps the notion of death is disfigured and exceeds every limit traditionally rooted in human civilization. In fact, the idea that interprets death as the final and definitive individualizing principle of human experience categorically disappears and, rather, we face a mechanical, massive production of corpses. Through the testimonial corpus left by survivors, it is possible to reflect on their conception of their own –and others’– death. Exploring concentrationary literature, I would suggest that prisoners succeed in overcoming this systematic trivialization of death through the search of meaning regarding other deportees’ deaths. Survivors single out, personalize and claim certain fatalities as a mechanism to subvert Nazi power and assert the victims’ human identity. In order to delimit the object of study and to ensure a contextualized study, this paper mainly focuses on experiences and memories of Jewish survivors in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex.