(Re)prezentacje czy symulacje? Przestrzeń łódzkiego getta w literaturze XXI wieku

Abstract

This essay demonstrates the way the space of the Łódź ghetto is represented in contemporary literature. Using as a starting point Aleida Assman’s observations on memory of traumatic places, the author analyzes the prose of Elżbieta Cherezińska, Steve Sem-Sandberg, Andrzej Bart, the graphic novel by Maciej Świerkocki and Marek Sołtysik, and a children’s story by Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala. Each of these texts becomes an opportunity to reinstate the ghetto in collective memory. At the same time, however, each one carries within itself limitations and dangers that result from the strategy of remembering, since gestures toward reinterpreting the Łódź space (for example, through mystification, simulation, imitation, aestheticization, and elevation) also lead to falsification and deformation of depictions of history.