Abstract
The article focuses on a controversy between historians and psychoanalysts around the testimonial value of a Holocaust survivor (Serena N.). The survivor’s account of the Auschwitz uprising includes factual exaggerations, which has led historians to discard it. Psychoanalysts on the contrary stressed that the testimony accounted for something else: the possibility of resistance in the concentration camp, which gave the inmates hope in their struggle for survival. Survivors’ testimonies, so the argument, have both an epistemological and an ethical content. While philosophy’s insistence on the epistemological dimension of testimony has long generated a disregard for this ethical dimension, it would be equally wrong to construe a pure ethicality of testimony. Testimony is, first and foremost, an entangled social practice, which has tobe acknowledged in its agonal, its aporetic and its performative implications.
Literatur
Agamben, G. (2005), Was von Auschwitz bleibt: das Archiv und der Zeuge, übers. v. Monhardt, S., Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar
Alloa, E. (2012), Eingefleischte Gesten: Nachleben und visuelle Zeugenschaft in Claude Lanzmanns Shoah und Rithy Panhs S21, in: Geimer, P., u. Hagner, M. (Hg.), Nachleben und Rekonstruktion: Vergangenheit im Bild, Paderborn, 207–230.Search in Google Scholar
Alloa, A. (2017a), The „Do It Yourself“ Paradigm: An Inquiry into the Historical Roots of the Neglect of Testimony, in: Early Science and Medicine 22.4, 333–360.10.1163/15733823-00224P03Search in Google Scholar
Alloa, A. (2017b), „Là où il y a preuve, il n’y a pas témoignage“. Les apories du témoin selon Jacques Derrida, in: Revue philosophique de Louvain 115.2, 289–303.Search in Google Scholar
Alloa, A., u. Kristensen, S. (2014), Un siècle génocidaire. Le parti pris du témoin, in: dies. (Hg.), Témoignage et survivance, Genf, 7–25.Search in Google Scholar
Antelme, R. (1990), Das Menschengeschlecht [1957], München u. Wien.Search in Google Scholar
Arendt, H., (1958), Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft, Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar
Barton, S. (2017), ÜBER ZEUGEN im Strafverfahren, in: Däumer, M., Kalisky, A., u. Schlie, H. (Hg.), Über Zeugen. Szenarien von Zeugenschaft und ihre Akteure, München u. Paderborn, 93–110.Search in Google Scholar
Boder, D. P. (1949), I Did Not Interview the Dead, Champaign, Ill.10.1037/13245-000Search in Google Scholar
Bufacchi, V. (2006), Knowing Violence: Testimony, Trust and Truth, in: Revue internationale de philosophie 235.1, 277–291.10.3917/rip.235.0277Search in Google Scholar
Cicero, De oratore [de orat.].Search in Google Scholar
Coady, C. A. J. (2002), Testimony: a philosophical study [1992], Oxford.Search in Google Scholar
Dawidowicz, L. S. (1981), The Holocaust and the Historians, Cambridge, Mass.Search in Google Scholar
Delbo, C. (1974), Qui rapportera ces paroles ? Tragédie en trois actes, Paris.Search in Google Scholar
Gelfert, A. (2014), A Critical Introduction to Testimony, Oxford.Search in Google Scholar
Greif, G. (2015), Aufstand in Auschwitz: Die Revolte des jüdischen „Sonderkommandos“ am 7. Oktober 1944, übers. v. Levin, I., Köln u. Weimar.10.7788/9783412502485Search in Google Scholar
Hartman, G. (1996), The Longest Shadow: In the Aftermath of the Holocaust, New York.Search in Google Scholar
Hilberg, R. (2001), Sources of Holocaust research. An analysis, Chicago.Search in Google Scholar
Hilberg, R. (2002), The politics of memory. The journey of a Holocaust historian, Chicago.Search in Google Scholar
Krämer, S. (2009), Medium, Bote, Übertragung. Kleine Metaphysik der Medialität, Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar
Krämer, S., Schmidt S., u. Schülein, J.-G. (Hg.) (2017), Philosophie der Zeugenschaft: eine Anthologie, Münster.Search in Google Scholar
Laub, D. (1992a), Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening, in: ders. u. Felman, S., Testimony. Crisis of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York u. London, 57–74.Search in Google Scholar
Laub, D. (1992b), An Event Without a Witness. Truth, Testimony and Survival, in: ders. u. Felman, S., Testimony. Crisis of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York u. London, 72–92.Search in Google Scholar
Laub, D. (2000), Zeugnis ablegen, oder die Schwierigkeit des Zuhörens, in: Baer, U. (Hg.), „Niemand zeugt für den Zeugen“: Erinnerungskultur und historische Verantwortung nach der Shoah, Frankfurt am Main, 68–83.Search in Google Scholar
Laub, D. (2009), On Holocaust Testimony and Its „Reception“ Within Its Own Frame, as a Process in Its Own Right: A Response to „Between History and Psychoanalysis“ by Thomas Trezise, in: History and Memory 20.1, 127–150.10.2979/his.2009.21.1.127Search in Google Scholar
Levi, P. (1987), Opere, Turin.Search in Google Scholar
Levi, P. (1993), Die Untergegangenen und die Geretteten, München.Search in Google Scholar
Lyotard, J.-F. (1989), Der Widerstreit, übers. v. Vogl, J., München.Search in Google Scholar
Mujawayo, E., u. Belhaddad, S. (2004), Survivantes: Rwanda, histoire d’un génocide, La Tour-d’Aigues.Search in Google Scholar
Mujawayo, E., u. Belhaddad, S. (2005), Ein Leben mehr: zehn Jahre nach dem Völkermord in Ruanda, übers. v. Himmelreich, J., Wuppertal.Search in Google Scholar
Nichanian, M. (2009), The Historiographic Perversion, New York.10.7312/nich14908Search in Google Scholar
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria [inst.].Search in Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. (2008), Die Hermeneutik des Zeugnisses [1972], in: ders., An den Grenzen der Hermeneutik. Philosophische Reflexionen über die Religion, Freiburg u. München, 7–40.Search in Google Scholar
Schmidt, S. (2015), Ethik und Episteme der Zeugenschaft, Konstanz.Search in Google Scholar
Schmidt, S. (2019), Zeugenschaft zwischen Ethik und Politik, in: Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 6.1, 189–214.10.22613/zfpp/6.1.8Search in Google Scholar
Trezise, T. (2008), Between History and Psychoanalysis: A Case Study in the Reception of Holocaust Survivor Testimony, in: History and Memory 20.1, 7–47.10.2979/his.2008.20.1.7Search in Google Scholar
White, H. V. (1991), Metahistory: die historische Einbildungskraft im 19. Jahrhundert in Europa, Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar
Zimmerman, J. C. (2000), Holocaust denial. Demographics, testimonies, and ideologies, Lanham, Md.Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston