Trauma and Forgiveness: Is the Holocaust traumatic?

References

Cite

Share

Abstract

One of the most influential contemporary accounts of psychological trauma, that of Cathy Caruth, does not fit some of the most traumatized men and women of the twentieth century: survivors of the Holocaust. Since Caruth would transform trauma into an engine of history, it is fair to ask why her account fails. Basing her account of trauma on a theory intentionally lacking psychological depth, Caruth, like other trauma theorists, is unable to account for trauma as a crisis of confidence in the value of life over death. My research on historical trauma is primarily based on recorded interviews with Holocaust survivors held in the Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimony at Yale University.