AUSCHWITZ AND THE CHALLENGES OF REPRESENTATION

Abstract

Departing from the concepts of representation and catastrophe, I propose a reflection about two works dedicated to an event which, on account of its own nature, do not forecast testimonial, dialogue or answer: the Nazism Extermination. By Primo Levi, the first work analyzed comes from literature, it is the book Is this a man? [Se questo è un uomo?], stand out by criticism to offer “a kind of perfect testimonial”. The second one, extracted of cinema, is the film Night and fog [Nuit et brouillard]. Directed by Alain Resnais, it detaches from the typical soppy style of Hollywood’s great productions, to set up a paralleled cutting between present and past: the beauty and the horror, the peace and the chaos, the poetry and the pain, the forgetful and the remembering. Amount, the both works evidence the importance of giving new meanings to the rests, the problems of catastrophe representation and the history extermination in the presence of our virtually times.