Qui rapportera ces paroles ?: Charlotte Delbo’s Theater as Witness

This is a study of Charlotte Delbo’s tragedy Qui rapportera ces paroles ? (1966), the only play in her work that takes place in a concentration and extermination camp, unnamed, and puts forward the spectral choir of her deported friends. The play is a theatrical transposition of Aucun de nous ne reviendra (1946). This rewriting demonstrates the inner power of Delbo’s art. She writes about something that has already been experienced, which is the event at the center of all her testimony, and then rewrites that event in different ways. These variations are intrinsically related to her purpose: “To remain steadfast in bearing testimony” that is infinite and whose writing can never be completed. We used unpublished and archival documents to support our analysis.