ABSTRACT
The relationship between trauma and narrative is close but problematic. This chapter discusses several narratives that attempt to come to terms with the Holocaust as an example of human agency that resulted in the murder of millions of innocent victims. Implicit in these comments on narrative and identity is a sense that memory, including traumatic memory, is closely linked to both. The aesthetic impact of the filmic representation is strengthened by, and in one sense predicated on, the extra-textual information about Simon Srebnik that C. Lanzmann gives the viewer as written text on the screen. Linking Srebnik’s song to the narrative of Shoah, the information enhances the narrative dimension of the film’s opening scene while at the same time problematizing narrative progression. The chapter discusses a passage from the testimony of Edith Notowicz. Notowicz is one of ten Jewish women who relate their stories from the Holocaust in Time’s Witnesses.
