ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how writer Charlotte Delbo in particular attempted not only to articulate the experience of existing in the camps, but also explored how writing, and indeed living might be possible after such a trauma. It suggests that what is described in Delbo's writing is an attempt at understanding trauma. For Delbo it is not a case of attempting to reintegrate the trauma or come to terms with the death encounter. Delbo's experience could better be described as a series of traumatic moments. In her final work, Days and Memory, Delbo attempts to discuss memory in its most fundamental sense. Delbo's suggestion of a split between intellectual and emotional memory can of course be viewed as a highly contrived mechanism for the greater preservation of sanity: it is a method she evidently developed during a period of struggle after her release, as these reflections were written some thirty years after the end of the war.
