Literature of Testimony, Seventy Years Later

Abstract

Lili Jaffe, Noemi Jaffe and Leda Cartum. Survivor of the Shoah, her daughter and granddaughter. The publication, in 2012, of O que os cegos estão sonhando? (What are the blind ones dreaming of?) rummages in the delicate territory of the trauma resulting from the tragedy and its repercussions on the descendants of the victims; here, second and third generations, somehow doomed to live under the burden of trauma, the traumatized family. The memory of the victim, recorded in the form of a diary - but, in disagreement with the usual, with what the reader expects, a diary recorded after the facts -, recalls the question of trustworthiness, the reliability of memory, the relation between the facts “as they ocurred”, and the reworking of memories, desires, reports of other survivors. In addition to Lili Jaffe’s diary, the book contains reflections of her daughter Noemi Jaffe and also a chapter written by her granddaughter, Leda Cartum. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the developments of the so-called “Literature of testimony”, seventy years after Nazi barbarism, as well on its re-signification by descendants who have not lived the facts but are in some way affected by the sheer presence, effective or symbolic, of the victim. It is also proposed the adoption of the concept of “generations of writings”, for the appreciation of works of “Literature of testimony”, according to their temporal distance from the facts