Perverse Memory and the Holocaust

A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-36050-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 503 g

Reihe: Memory Studies: Global Constellations

Perverse Memory and the Holocaust presents a new theoretical approach to the study of Polish memory bystanders of the Holocaust. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, it examines representations of the Holocaust in order to explore the perverse mechanisms of memory at work, in which surface a series of phenomena difficult to remember: the pleasure derived from witnessing scenes of violence, identification with the German perpetrators of violence, the powerful fear of revenge at the hands of Jewish victims, and the adoption of the position of genocide victims.

Moving away from the focus of previous psychoanalytic studies of memory on questions of mourning, melancholy, repressed memory, and loss, this volume considers the transformation of the collective identity of those who remained in the space of past Holocaust events: bystanders, who partook in the events and benefited from the extermination of the Jews. A critique of ‘perverse memory’ that hampers attempts to work through what is remembered, this book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences working in the fields of Holocaust studies, memory studies, psychoanalytic studies, and cultural studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Borowicz, Jan

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte Deutsche Geschichte: Holocaust
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse Psychoanalyse (S. Freud)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The Blurred and the Overlooked 1. Voyeurism: The Polish Bystander Looks with One Eye 2. Fetishism: The Nazi in a Uniform 3. Masochism: Competitive Victimization 4. Sadism: Drastic Returns of the Dead 5. Perverse (Post)Memory Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Jan Borowicz is a member of the Holocaust Remembrance Research Team at the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw, Poland. A cultural studies scholar, he has published two books in Polish on the Holocaust history and memory. He is also a certified psychotherapist, a member of Polish Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and a candidate of the Polish Psychoanalytical Society (IPA).