Diaries by Rachela Auerbach and Marylka in the context of materiality of Holocaust records

Abstract

The author deals with the materiality of the records of the experience of the Holocaust, and in particular with the phenomenon of texts damaged in various ways (as a result of exposure to moisture, chemical or biological agents, as well as mechanically damaged texts). This damage is the result of texts being hidden, above all underground in poorly protected containers – such as documents from the Ringelblum Archive. The numerous blemishes on the material substance of the text that arise during hiding are imprinted on it, transforming it in a way that was not intended by the author, but is the result of the influence of accidental external factors. They often constitute a fundamental difficulty in reading the text and editing it. However, they can be regarded (and so the author does) as a particular stigma of the Holocaust. Damaged texts thus acquire a double reference. Firstly: they point to their author and the world he/she describes. Secondly: they point to themselves. They become valuable not only by what they talk about, but also by the fact that they are there at all. Like objects saved from the disaster, these texts become valuable by the very fact that they exist. The author focuses on documents from the Ringelblum Archive and describes the various types of damage to the texts that survived there. He focuses in particular on a fragment of Rachel Auerbach’s diary – the last entry made on 26 July 1942, on the fifth day of the great liquidation action in the Warsaw Ghetto.