To Read The World, To Write A Poem, To Make A Draw: Concentracionary Universe Conceptions In The Poem “The Little Mouse” And Terezín’s Drawings

Abstract

This article presents the analysis of the poem “The Little Mouse” and 4 drawings, made by 6children, ages between 7 and 13, who were confined in Terezín Nazi concentration camp, in Czech Republic, between 1941 and 1945, aiming to find elements that would enlarge our understanding of the perspective of the child in relation to concentration universe, investigating how they assimilated the historical, political, cultural and social context and which symbolic, narrative and discursive strategies they developed to express their ideas, emotions, impressions and perceptions about themselves and about the world. Our hypothesis is that these drawings and poems have testimonial content and value, being another testimony of the Holocaust, a poetic record founded on the child's perception of the events and in his very particular way of expressing them. The analysis of the corpus of the research indicated that the children were able to attribute poetically senses to different aspects of the context in very particular and personal ways, demonstrating great sensitivity and awareness of the context developed, which contributed to the construction of other narratives about the concentrationary universe.