Review article
TRIUMPH, TRAUMA, AND OVERCOMING THE PAST IN THE WORK OF ALEIDA ASSMANN
Ivana Cvijović Javorina
; Third gymnasium (high school), Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This article provides a short overview of some of the key concepts of Aleida Assmann. Special emphasis is placed on certain aspects related to violence and trauma as well as coming to terms with the past. An attempt is made to deal with the issue of how the Germans relate to their Nazi past and to show how this has changed in the last sixty years. Immediately following the war, in Germany there stood a “double wall of silence” according to Assmann. On the one hand there was reluctance on the part of victims to remember, on the other, there was society’s reluctance to listen to their stories. In the 1980s there was an increased interest in the experience of victims of the Second World War, especially those of the Holocaust. The trauma suffered by victims of the war Aleida Assmann sees as an important characteristic of German 20th century history and emphasizes its importance in interpreting historical events. She also incorporates Reinhart Koselleck’s concept of positive and negative memory as an integral part of the memory of a nation. Arguing for the recognition of the equal status of all victims of the war and strongly opposed to the possibility of competition among them, Aleida Assmann provides her contribution to the debate on whether it is possible to speak of the Germans themselves as victims without diminishing the suffering of the victims of the Holocaust. Her interpretation of historical generations is also important. She believes that varied relations to the past are a consequence of generational differences. Along these lines, she pays special attention to three generations, the 1933 generation, the 1945 generation, and the 1968 generation, arguing that one cannot be understood without the other.
Keywords
Overcoming the past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung); Trauma; Victims; Positive and Negative Memory; Generations
Hrčak ID:
109898
URI
Publication date:
21.10.2013.
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