“It is not important whether he hates or not. Muselmänner disturbed him”– a Category of Disturbance in the Narrations about a Muselmann in the Literature of the Shoah

Abstract

In the literary recollections of camp survivors the figure of the Muselmann is a recurring motif. The author puts forward a thesis about the existence of a dominating, prototypical narration about a Muselmann, which occurs not only in literary texts but also in scholarly studies. The questioning of the exemplary forms of depicting a Muselmann may lead to irritation and evoke in readers the feeling of “disturbance”. The re-enactment of such disturbances possesses a hidden analytical potential, as it reveals routinized and partly problematic cultural structures of reception and cquisition apparent especially in the context of post-catastrophic narrations and remembrance of the Shoah.

Keywords

• Muselmann
• disturbance
• competitive narrations
• social history