(Ur)Enkelinnen zwischen Erinnerung und Erzählung: Literarische Repräsentationen von Traumata in Maja Haderlaps Engel des Vergessens, Ramona Ambs’ Die radioaktive Marmelade meiner Großmutter und Mirna Funks Zwischen Du und Ich

Abstract

This article examines literary representation of traumatic memories of the Second World War and the Holocaust in three contemporary German-language narratives of the third and fourth generations after these events. For the narrators, who operate in a generational mode and are transgenerationally traumatized, the figure of the (great)grandmother becomes an important reference point. They nonetheless manage to assert their own experiences in their narratives through a variety of literary strategies, as each representation of trauma works with fictionalization and aestheticization, while negotiating the challenges of representing traumatic memories. This article analyzes those aesthetic strategies of the novels (such as shifts in perspective, gaps, aesthetics of fragmentation, and flashbacks) to show how the transmission of trauma to the generation of the (great)granddaughters can be represented with literary means. (MD, in German)