Life Writing als Death Writing

Die Frauen der Shoah und ihre Überlebenstexte

Abstract

This article examines autobiographical and fictional narratives about the Shoah written by women in which dreams play a central role. With a special focus on the works of Charlotte Delbo and Anna Langfus, the comparative perspective explores why and to what extent the dream functions as a narrative device that gives powerful expression to what is often labelled as the ‘unspeakable’ in Shoah discourses. At the center of the article lies the question of a specifically female dream knowledge of the Shoah and the affinity between dreaming and écriture feminine.