'He has to invent one'. A Childhood Lost in the Shoah

Dr. Ariane Eichenberg Universität Hamburg

Today, writing of memory rather resembles an archeaological excavation. Centimeter after centimeter, the layers deposited over the years are digged up and both their signification and interrelatedness are examined. Sometimes, one finds something what had been forgotten for a long time. Some things are lost forever. One can only attempt to complement their loss through the knowledge of the present. This is especially the case for children and their fate during the Shoah. Within the very context of the genocide, they were condemned to death and they could not serve as work forces. How do child survivors tell the story of a life that was denied in every respect? How do they try to grasp such a life in writing? On the basis of texts by various authors, Ariane Eichenberg will pursue this search after the past in writing.

Ariane Eichenberg (°1968) is lecturer at the University of Hamburg, collaborator in the research project "Erinnerung und Gedächtnis" of Prof. Harald Welzer in Witten/Herdecke and works as a freelance journalist for the radio (Deutschlandfunk, WDR, NDR). She has written her dissertation "Zwischen Erfahrung und Erfindung. Jüdische Lebensentwürfe nach der Shoah" (2003) under the supervision of Prof. A. Assmann and Prof. J. Schöndert. She received a fellowship from "Hamburger Stiftung zur Förderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur". She studied Slavic and German Languages and Literature in Hamburg and Heidelberg. She has three children and lives in Hamburg.