Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing During the Holocaust by Amos Goldberg (review)

Amos Goldberg's book addresses the impact of the trauma of the Holocaust on the internal consciousness of individuals. By analyzing diaries written during the Holocaust and tracing the everyday experiences of terror reflected in these diaries, he provides important insights into the relationship between trauma and identity, the power of writing when witnessing death and disruption, and "the centrality of helplessness" (p. 17).

One of the main insights of trauma theory, currently prevalent in various disciplines, is that traumatic experiences are related to the breakdown of psychological functioning and even the ability to communicate. The term "unspeakable" is often used when referring to those who have experienced trauma and attempted to represent it using language. Relations of power are embedded in language, and language is inseparable from a community "that shares or is subject to something that will temporarily fix meanings."¹ A traumatic event disrupts the communal links and undermines relationships and the stability of identity. This has a major impact on the identities of those who have experienced trauma: "We can no longer be who we were, and the social context is not what we assumed it to be."²

Despite these insights, representations of the Holocaust in academic literature and mass media often focus on the strength of those who experienced trauma. Themes of resistance (both armed and peaceful), inner strength, and the ability to maintain human dignity even under the most difficult conditions take center stage. Diaries written during the Holocaust are used to create such narratives of fighting and suffering. Trauma is often portrayed as a source of empowerment, not a major disruptive influence that has the power to paralyze language and undermine identity. Although Goldberg does not explicitly condemn such depictions, he points out a major flaw, which is the distortion of the experiences of the Holocaust. He argues that "the internal transformation of social consciousness and the human psyche that occurred during the catastrophe—so dominant in the writings of the period—is not given sufficient attention in its later representations" (p. x). To provide insight into these major transformations and changes, his book sets out to explore "the tension between the concept of 'life story' as identity-forming and the concept of 'trauma' as undermining the foundations of identity" (p. xi).

Goldberg makes a convincing case for conceptualizing the Holocaust as a trauma with enormous power to undermine identities and disrupt autobiographical narratives. In contrast, many authors (especially those who embrace heroic narratives about the Holocaust) have tended to conceptualize the Holocaust as a crisis—an engine of discourses, a potential for new openings, new identities, and even a new life. The term "crisis" implies challenges and disruption; however, it also offers new opportunities and empowerment for those who suffered through it. For Goldberg, the trauma of the Holocaust cannot be associated with such an understanding of crisis. The Holocaust can be best understood as a trauma, as "a fundamental rupture" (p. 56) that weakens and disables those who have experienced it. Goldberg acknowledges that the Holocaust as a "crisis" paradigm can be very appealing to professional historians, entrepreneurs of popular memory, and even victims. Honest engagement with the traumatic aspects of the diaries examined in this book, however, produces a more complex and fuller understanding of the Holocaust as experienced by its victims.

Probably one of the major strengths of this book is a sustained, insightful analysis of the ways in which trauma affects the identities of those who have experienced it. By conducting a close reading of the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a language scholar from Dresden who had no interest in his Jewish identity before the Holocaust, and Chaim Kaplan, who, in contrast to Klemperer, was an ardent Zionist and a Hebraist, Goldberg demonstrates how horrific aspects of life during the Holocaust undermined subjectivities and narrative identities. Both diaries reveal "a self who is profoundly and extremely helpless" (p. 256). Goldberg convincingly shows how traumatic...