Narration as Revenge: the memories of Stanislaw Szmajzner

Abstract

This article analyzes the book Hell in Sobibor: the tragedy of a Jewish teenager by Stanislaw Szmajzner, a former prisoner in the Nazi extermination camp in Sobibor that latter resided in Brazil where he published his memoirs. Based on the reading of the text we aim to verify how this autobiographical work is constructed based on the memory of a survivor of an extermination camp during World War II, identifying its characteristics and frictions between the report and other sources. Szmajzner’s book fits in what Todorov established as good use of the memory, since the exemplar case of the author is used to generate a lesson, intended to prevent that analog cases occur in the future. Also, the book is established as an instrument so that the crimes committed by the tormentors of the author are not forgotten, using the work as a form of revenge.

Keywords

• Autobiografia
• Stanislaw Szmajzner
• Inferno em Sobibor
• Genocídio
• Memória