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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: August 6th, 2007 <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">I, __________________Julia K. Baker,__________ </li><li style="flex:1">_____ </li></ul>hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctorate of Philosophy in: German Studies It is entitled: The Return of the Child Exile: Re-enactment of Childhood Trauma in Jewish Life-Writing and Documentary Film This work and its defense approved by: Dr. Katharina Gerstenberger Dr. Sara Friedrichsmeyer Dr. Todd Herzog Chair: The Return of the Child Exile: Re-enactment of Childhood Trauma in Jewish Life-Writing and Documentary Film A Dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) In the Department of German Studies Of the College of Arts and Sciences 2007 by Julia K. Baker M.A., Bowling Green State University, 2000 M.A., Karl Franzens University, Graz, Austria, 1998 Committee Chair: Katharina Gerstenberger ABSTRACT “The Return of the Child Exile: Re-enactment of Childhood Trauma in Jewish LifeWriting and Documentary Film” is a study of the literary responses of writers who were Jewish children in hiding and exile during World War II and of documentary films on the topic of refugee children and children in exile. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relationships between trauma, memory, fantasy and narrative in a close reading/viewing of different forms of Jewish life-writing and documentary film by means of a scientifically informed approach to childhood trauma. Chapter 1 discusses the reception of Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments (1994), which was hailed as a paradigmatic traumatic narrative written by a child survivor before it was discovered to be a fictional text based on the author’s invented Jewish life-story. In this chapter, I also review established adaptations of trauma in literature, as introduced most prominently into the humanities by Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub and Cathy Caruth, and subsequently propose a more clinicial view of trauma informed by childhood trauma research and cognitive psychology. My methodological approach thus links recent scholarship on Holocaust literature with contemporary trauma theory. Subsequently, Fragments serves as a point of departure to discuss the links between traumatic memory, fantasy and narrative in Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt’s pseudoautobiographical texts Der Spiegeltag, Ein Garten in Deutschland, Die Absonderung, Der iii unterbrochene Wald, and Die Aussetzung, as well as his autobiography Über die Flüsse (Chapter 2), Stefanie Zweig’s two autobiographical novels Nirgendwo in Afrika and Irgendwo in Deutschland (Chapter 3), and Lore Segal’s memoir turned novel Other People’s Houses (Chapter 4). Following Lenore Terr’s and other childhood trauma specialists’ insights, I locate the four most common characteristics found in traumatized children in Goldschmidt’s, Zweig’s and Segal’s texts. These characteristics are: strongly visualized or otherwise repeatedly perceived memories, repetitive behaviors, trauma-specific fears, and changed attitudes about people, aspects of life, and the future. Finally, in chapter 5, I show how childhood trauma and child exiles have been depicted in documentary films such as Into the Arms of Strangers (2000), My Knees Were Jumping (1995), and Vielleicht habe ich Glück gehabt (2003). Key words: Life-Writing, Childhood Trauma, Jewish Children in Exile, Refugee Children, Holocaust Literature, Binjamin Wilkomirski, Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt, Stefanie Zweig, Lore Segal, Documentary Film <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">iv </li><li style="flex:1">v</li></ul>To my father Peter and my grandmother Marianne vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Compiling an (incomplete) list of people to whom I am grateful makes me wonder why I ever felt lonely during the past three years. In retrospect, dissertation writing is a rather social process. I am grateful for the guidance and support of a number of teachers and colleagues for their questions and suggestions regarding the development of my project. My “Doktormutter” Katharina Gerstenberger is the best advisor one could wish for. Her expertise, responsiveness, thoughtful critique, humor and honesty also make her a great role model for the future. Sara Friedrichsmeyer and Todd Herzog have encouraged and supported me from start to finish. For inspiring my work in many ways, I would like to thank Dervila Cook, Christina Guenther, Marianne Hirsch, Geoffrey Howes, Käthe Kratz, Erin McGlothlin, Leo Spitzer, Lenore C. Terr, Racelle Weiman, and Liliane Weissberg. Thank you to Alfred Gottschalk, Trudy Rauh, Harold Kasimow, and Henry Blumenstein for sharing their childhood stories. Individuals, whose friendship also supported this work and influenced my state of mind while completing it, include my fellow graduate students at the University of Cincinnati, particularly Laura Traser-Vas. My friend Jeff Hannigan deserves to be mentioned for being the only person who, apart from my dissertation committee, has repeatedly reminded me that he wants to read the whole thing when it is finished. I am grateful to many Austrian, Australian, and German friends for keeping in touch over the years and for believing in me. A special thank you to Barbara Simons for sending large boxes of tea from Wales and Scotland. My dear friend Jan Caporale deserves special recognition for her spontaneity, her laughter, and her expertise in toddler entertainment. I am indebted to Emmanuel Wilson, Jay Sinnard, and Ferenc Traser for their help with the technical aspects of putting together the final version of this project. For considering my dissertation worthy of financial support, I thank the University of Cincinnati, the Department of German Studies, the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center and the Taft Memorial Fund, and the Max Kade Foundation. My mother Lili and my sister Luci are two remarkable women who live too far away from me. vii I could not have completed this dissertation without the love, support and patience of my husband Ron, and without being distracted by my beautiful sons Leopold and Clemens. Finally, I am touched by the lives of my Papi Peter and my grandmother Marianne, to whom I have dedicated this work. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................ VII TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: WILKOMIRSKI AND BEYOND: THE “TRAUMATIZATION” OF HOLOCAUST LITERATURE AND JEWISH LIFE-WRITING............................... 3 1.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 3 1.2 JEWISH CHILDHOOD AND CHILD SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST: HIDDEN CHILDREN AND CHILDREN IN EXILE ........................................................................... 35 1.3 CHILDHOOD TRAUMA RESEARCH ......................................................................... 45 1.4 TRACING THE INTERPLAY OF TRAUMA, MEMORY AND FANTASY: REMEMBERING AND NARRATING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA...................................................................... 55 CHAPTER 2: “ALLES ERZÄHLEN UND DOCH NICHTS VERRATEN?”: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN GEORGES-ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT’S FICTIONAL, PSEUDO-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LIFE-WRITING ............................................................................................................. 61 2.1 GEORGES-ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT’S CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS............................. 61 2.2 GEORGES-ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT AS FRENCH/GERMAN AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR................................................................................................................ 63 2.3 FROM FICTION TO PSEUDO-AUTOBIOGRAPHY TO AUTOBIOGRAPHY: REMEMBERING AND NARRATING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN GEORGES-ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT’S LIFE- WRITING................................................................................ 73 2.3.1 Der Spiegeltag: Literary Influences............................................................... 82 2.3.2 Ein Garten in Deutschland: Early Traumatization in Germany.................. 90 2.3.3 Der unterbrochene Wald: The Holocaust and Survivor Guilt...................... 97 2.3.4 Die Absonderung: The Body and (Sado-)Masochistic Fantasies............... 101 2.3.5 Die Aussetzung: Dissolved Body and Liberation......................................... 105 2.3.6 Über die Flüsse : Defictionalization and Judgment of Parents.................. 109 CHAPTER 3: “KOMISCH, DAß WIR ALLE WAS ANDERES MEINEN, WENN WIR ZU HAUSE SAGEN.”: ‘VICARIOUS CHILDHOOD TRAUMA’ AND THE JEWISH ‘FAMILY ROMANCE’ IN STEFANIE ZWEIG’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVELS NIRGENDWO IN AFRIKA AND IRGENDWO IN DEUTSCHLAND .................................................................................................... 120 3.1 STEFANIE ZWEIG’S VICARIOUS CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ...................................... 120 3.2 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND RELATIONSHIPS: REGINA’S SEARCH FOR A SPACE IN THE JEWISH “FAMILY ROMANCE”............................................................................ 126 3.3 REMEMBERING AND NARRATING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN NIRGENDWO IN AFRIKA ....................................................................................................................... 131 3.4 REMEMBERING AND NARRATING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN IRGENDWO IN DEUTSCHLAND............................................................................................................ 148 CHAPTER 4: “TURNING CHILDHOOD DISASTERS INTO ADVENTURES”: LORE SEGAL’S NOVEL OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES....................................... 160 14.1 LORE SEGAL’S CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS ............................................................... 160 4.2 “ALMOST AN ENGLISH GIRL”: THE EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ON LORE’S SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL IDENTITY AND HER RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS ..................................................................................................................................... 166 4.3 WHERE AUTOBIOGRAPHY STOPS AND FICTION BEGINS: REMEMBERING AND NARRATING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IN OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES........................... 177 CHAPTER 5: THE “TRAUMATIZATION” OF DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING............................................................................................................. 191 5.1 DOCUMENTARY FILMS AS CREATIVE TREATMENTS OF HOLOCAUST ACTUALITY ..................................................................................................................................... 191 5.2 TRAUMA SIGNALS IN ORAL TESTIMONIES: GIVING MEANING TO THE ACT OF REMEMBERING........................................................................................................... 202 5.3 MELISSA HACKER MY KNEES WERE JUMPING: REMEMBERING THE KINDERTRANSPORTS (1995) ...................................................................................... 208 5.6 MARK ANTHONY HARRIS/DEBORAH OPPENHEIMER INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS. STORIES OF THE KINDERTRANSPORT (2000)....................................... 217 5.7 KÄTHE KRATZ VIELLEICHT HABE ICH GLÜCK GEHABT (2003)......................... 227 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ............................................................................. 239 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................... 245 2Chapter 1: Wilkomirski and Beyond: The “Traumatization” of Holocaust Literature and Jewish Life-writing Die Erinnerungen des Kindes nahm niemand ernst, sie galten den Erwachsenen als Ausgeburten einer wilden Phantasie. (Excerpt from an announcement text for one of Binjamin Wilkomirski’s live performances as a Holocaust child survivor; cited in the preface by Sander Gilman in Irene Diekmann, Julius Schoeps, Eds. Das Wilkomirski Syndrom. Eingebildete Erinnerungen oder Von der Sehnsucht Opfer zu sein. Zürich und München: Pendo, 2002. 8.) Live is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it. (Writing motto preceding the first volume of Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s memoir Living to Tell the Tale. Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossmann. New York: Knopf, 2003. No page number.) 1.1 Introduction In an early review of Holocaust literature, Leslie Epstein writes: “Any honest eyewitness testimony is more moving and more successful at creating a sense of what it must have been like in the ghettos and the camps than almost any fictional account of the same events.”1 More than ten years later, Epstein revisits his judgment and comments: “This was not a very smart remark for one engaged in writing a Holocaust novel of his own.”2 As a scholar who has written theoretically and creatively about the Holocaust, Epstein concludes: “My thesis all along has been that the sense of responsibility and connectedness can be achieved only by the creative artist – and by creative readers, as well.”3 Works of fiction thematizing the Holocaust have traditionally been considered less successful and less adequate forms of literature than the testimonies of those who 1 Cited in Berel Lang and Aharon Appelfeld, Writing and the Holocaust (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988). 261. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 269. 3experienced the Holocaust themselves. Accordingly, James E. Young has argued that “Holocaust writers have assumed that the more realistic a representation, the more adequate it becomes as testimonial evidence. For the survivor’s witness to be credible, it must seem natural and unconstructed.”4 In this context, Efraim Sicher notes “Holocaust writing is morally charged and driven by a testimonial mission.” In the introduction to the dictionary of literary biographies of Holocaust Novelists, Efraim Sicher maintains “nowhere is the distinction between fiction and nonfiction so problematic as in Holocaust literature.”5 Sicher adds: “The transformation of personal and collective trauma into fiction and art has […] been a major issue in the critical debates over the uses of history and the authenticity of memoir.”6 As a consequence, Holocaust testimonies, novels, memoirs and autobiographies have been surrounded by much controversy. One aspect of this controversy concerns the boundaries between fact and fiction. According to Anne Whitehead, “it has been recognized that Holocaust fiction is often based on extensive historical research and documentation, while Holocaust testimony is subject to the inaccuracies and distortions of memory.”7 Whitehead argues that Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments. Memories of a Childhood, 1939-1948 represented “a crisis point” in this discussion as it “collapsed the boundary between fact and fiction in an unprecedented manner and critics were at a loss as to how to categorise the text.”8 4 James Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust:Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation. (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1988). 17. 5 Efraim Sicher, Holocaust Novelists, Dictionary of Literary Biography; v. 299. (Detroit: Gale, 2004). xvi. 6 Ibid. xv. 7 Anne Whitehead, Trauma Fiction (Edingburgh: Edingburgh University Press, 2004). 30. 8 Ibid. 31. 4 Binjamin Wilkomirski’s childhood memories were published in 1995 under the title Bruchstücke. Aus einer Kindheit 1939–1948 by the Jüdischer Verlag (part of the highly respected Suhrkamp Verlag). In what the publishers classified as a memoir, the author claimed to be one of the very few (Latvian) child survivors of a number of concentration camps. Bruchstücke was eventually published in thirty countries and translated into sixteen languages. An English translation entitled Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1939-1948 appeared in 1996, published by Schocken. Although it was by no means a bestseller, as some have claimed,9 Bruchstücke was generally received rather positively. Anna Karpf praised it in The Guardian, as “one of the great works about the Holocaust;”10 Katherine Viner compared it with works by Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Claude Lanzmann, and the diary of Anne Frank.11 It was favorably reviewed by Maria Ross in the Daily Mail, Patricia Lee in the Literary Review and Paul Bailey in the Daily Telegraph. Initially, Fragments was also lionized by academic readers. Thus, James E. Young, whose Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (1988) is one of the most noted pieces on literary responses to the Holocaust, praised Fragments as a “wonderful Holocaust testimony.”12 Lawrence Langer described the book as “a very compelling work of literature.”13 Historian Jaques Picard considered Fragments an authentic text by an

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