In the Shadow of the Crematorium

The following paper discusses and contrasts two films that both deal with true events: the survival of a child in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the October 1944, revolt of the Sonderkommando (a group of Jewish men working in the gas chambers). The paper explores the implications of the differences between the two movies especially regarding the psychic world presupposed and envisioned by each. It also relates these visions to the world of the author's childhood which was lived with an internalized fantasy of her mother's work during the Holocaust –in the shadow of [RW1]the crematoriums as a member of the Canada Kommanda (a group of women who sorted prisoners' belongings in a bloc next to the Sonderkommando) and as a witness to the Sonderkommando's workings and revolt

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Fantasy · Holocaust survivors · Judaism · Literature · Political science · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Shadow (psychology) · Sociology · The Holocaust · Vision · Witness · Anthropology · Gender Studies · German History and Society · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Medicine · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Psychology