ABSTRACT
The writer Aharon Appelfeld, when eight years old, witnessedthe pogrom in his home town of Czernowitz. He saw themurder of his mother and, separated from the rest of his family, survived by scavenging in the forests. Remembrance was complicated, he thought, by his having been too young a child to process much of what he saw. The past remains entirely physical for him: “etched inside my body but not in my memory”. After more than half a century, his feet still cause tension in his legs and this instantly transfers him back to the years in hiding. The very act of sitting or standing can conjure up hellish visions of packed railway stations. Rotting straw or the call of a bird trigger visceral memories deep within his body (The Observer Book Review, 21 August 2005).
