A new language of trauma: narrativising the unnarratable in the Holocaust art of first-generation survivors

Abstract

Initially a way to record the atrocities committed by the Nazis, the Holocaust art of first-generation survivors has been integral in the preservation of Holocaust memory with its documentary functions. With the increasing documentation of the Holocaust in the archives, however, the goal of Holocaust art shifts from proving the existence of atrocities to exploring their extent and impact on survivors. This invites a consideration of another type of Holocaust art which has been fairly overlooked: expressionistic depictions of personal trauma produced post-Holocaust by survivors. In challenging the stereotyped iconography of the Holocaust that developed in visual culture, this type of Holocaust art rethinks what it means to witness Holocaust trauma. Yet for an event that is so often deemed as unrepresentable and unfathomable, especially for today’s removed audience, how does Holocaust art bridge the gap of trauma’s unnarratability? How does it invite viewers to approach trauma as a lived experience of the survivor, rather than a distant document of the past? Examining the works of Jewish Holocaust camp survivors Yehuda Bacon, Roman Halter and Shmuel Dresner, this paper explores how they establish a new visual language that evokes traumatic experience in its production and reception, inducing viewers to uncover an understanding of trauma from the survivor’s perspective as they peel back layers of a complex, multi-layered image.