Wilkomirski the victim: Individual remembering as social interaction and public event

History and Memory

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 59-95

  Maechler, Stefan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; EUROPE; HISTORY; HOLOCAUST; HUMAN RELATION; JEW; LEGAL ASPECT; LIFE EVENT; MEMORY; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REFUGEE; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; VICTIM; VIOLENCE; WAR;

CRIME VICTIMS; EUROPE; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOLOCAUST; INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS; JEWS; LIFE CHANGE EVENTS; MEMORY; PREJUDICE; REFUGEES; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; VIOLENCE; WORLD WAR II;

EID: 0010930010     PISSN: 0935560X     EISSN: 15271994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/ham.2001.0011     Document Type: Review

References (132)

1. Binjamin Wilkomirski, Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, trans. Carol Brown Janeway (New York, 1996)
2. quoted from the reprint in Maechler, The Wilkomirski Affair, 375-496, 490.
3. Alain Finkielkraut, The Imaginary Jew, trans. Kevin O'Neill and David Suchoff (Lincoln and London, 1994), 33 (originally published 1980).
4. The following is taken from Maechler, The Wilkomirski Affair, 3-21.
5. conversations with Jürg Wagner, Zurich, 25 March 1999 (interview kindly made available by Wolf Gebhardt);
6. Nika Derungs, Zurich, 21 May 1999;
7. Lukas Sarasin, Zurich, 28 April 1999 (interview by Wolf Gebhardt);
8. Annie Singer, Zurich, 18 April 1999;
9. Chr. B., Zurich, 31 Aug. 1999;
10. Annette Dössekker-von Gonzenbach, Zurich, 26 July 1999;
11. Lisel Jettel, Vienna, 27 July 2000.
12. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 58, 193-96.
13. conversation with Chr. B., 31 Aug. 1999
14. Sybille Schuppli, Zurich, 9 Sept. 1999.
15. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 87-88, 98, 238;
16. conversation with Chr. B., 31 Aug. 1999;
17. Bruno Dössekker in a letter to Birgit Littmann Brunner, 16 Feb. 1983.
18. B. D. Wilkomirski, "Israel-Palästina Dossier: Themen und Grundlagen zur Geschichte und zur Gegenwart" (1994), unpublished notes of a course given by Wilkomirski at the end of the 1980s at the latest, 12-13, 37, 57, 59.
19. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 62, 233, 237-38;
20. conversation with Chr. B. 31 Aug. 1999;
21. Bruno Dössekker in a letter to Birgit Littmann Brunner, 16 Feb. 1983.
22. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 233-34.
23. Note by Paul Uri Russak on his conversation with Sarah Schner, 20 April 2001; report by Sarah Schner on a conversation with Bruno Dössekker Wilkomirski, Kibbutz Lohamei ha-Getta'ot, undated (trans. into German from Hebrew by P. Russak and D. Golub). I owe the link to Schner to Lea Balint.
24. Cf. Wilkomirski, Fragments, 467-68. It is also possible that the names of the camps were introduced by Schner in conversation, since she was very familiar with the material.
25. Cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 68.
26. Wilkomirski, Fragments, 378-82;
27. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 27-30, 81-82, 88-89.
28. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 93-94;
29. conversation with Hanno Helbling, Rome, 18 Aug. 1999.
30. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 94-96, 102, 24-27.
31. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 129-34.
32. When I interviewed Balint in the summer of 1999 in the course of my research, I recorded her statement that she had a Masters degree (cf. ibid., 153). Today she denies ever having made this claim (e-mail to me, 28 March 2001).
33. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair;
34. Elena Lappin, "The Man with Two Heads," Granta, no. 66 (summer 1999): 7-65;
35. research by the historian Wolf Gebhardt for the film Child of the Death Camps: Truth & Lies, dir. Christopher Olgiati, BBC One (production), broadcast on 3 Nov. 1999.
36. Daniel Ganzfried, "Binjamin Wilkomirski und die verwandelte Polin," Weltwoche, 4 Nov. 1999.
37. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 163-268.
38. Wilkomirski in a radio interview with Hardy Ruoss, "52 Beste Bücher," Radio DRS II, 24 Dec. 1995, Studio Zurich, MG 58143;
39. K.M. in an e-mail to me, 11 March 2001;
40. Daniel L. Schacter, Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past (New York, 1996), 23, 110, 271-72;
41. Daniel L. Schacter, The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (Boston and New York, 2001), 125, 127, 129, 219-20, 174, 177.
42. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 111, 272.
43. Schacter, Seven Sins, 112-37;
44. Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse (New York, 1994), 32, 77-79, 85-101, 126-30, 166.
45. Giuliana Mazzoni and Elizabeth Loftus, "Dream Interpretation Can Change Beliefs about the Past," Psychotherapy, no. 35 (1998): 177-87;
46. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 88, 250, 258-59.
47. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 84, 168-69, 253-54;
48. Wilkomirski in the radio interview, "52 Beste Bücher";
49. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 266, cf. 207.
50. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 114-16, 118-21;
51. Schacter, Seven Sins, 88-111.
52. Wilkomirski, Fragments, 377-78;
53. Schacter, Searching for Memory, esp. chap. 2;
54. cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 251-54.
55. Gabor Hirsch in an e-mail to me, 30 March 2001.
56. Maurice Halbwachs, Das Gedächtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen (Frankfurt/M., 1985) (originally published in French, 1925), 19-21.
57. Cf. Katherine Nelson, "Memory and Belief in Development," in Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry, eds., Memory, Brain, and Belief (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 259-89;
58. Cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 226-32, 315-16.
59. Berkovici is mentioned only in the English edition of Fragments, 490, 494
60. cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 55-56.
61. Conversation with Jürg Wagner, 23 March 1999.
62. For the significance of figures in authority cf. Loftus and Ketcham, Myth of Repressed Memory, 89-90;
63. Schacter, Searching for Memory, 106-7.
64. Gerhard Schoenberner, The Yellow Star: The Persecution of the Jews in Europe, 1933-1945, trans. Susan Sweet (London, 1969)
65. originally published in German: Der gelbe Stern (Munich, 1960).
66. Conversation with Annie Singer, 18 April 1999
67. Lukas Sarasin, 28 April 1999.
68. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 54;
69. Annette Wieviorka, "Die Entstehung des Zeugen," in Gary Smith, ed., Hannah Arendt Revisited: "Eichmann in Jerusalem" und die Folgen (Frankfurt/M., 2000), 136-59.
70. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 196-203.
71. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 80-81, 247-62, 200, 203.
72. conversation with Chr. B., 31 Aug. 1999.
73. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 62, 84-86.
74. Note by Paul Uri Russak on his conversation with Sarah Schner, 20 April 2001.
75. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 153-56.
76. Donald P. Spence, Narrative Truth and Historical Truth: Meaning and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis (New York and London, 1982), here esp. 31-32.
77. In my view Spence's theories also apply to other forms of therapy including Wilkomirski's therapy, although according to Bernstein it was not classical psychoanalysis but only psychoanalytically oriented. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 88-89, 96-97.
78. Cf. Spence, Narrative Truth, 29, 279-81, 284.
79. This influence is prevalent, even if her role is not as active as I described it in my book. In the therapy concept that Wilkomirski and Bernstein jointly devised there are examples of Wilkomirski's own therapy with his psychologist M.M. In a letter to me, she emphatically denies having anything to do with the concept. She claims that the therapy example with the belt buckle, which I refer to in Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 254-55, did not originate in her work. In this episode Wilkomirski describes how his therapist urges her patient despite his reluctance to relate a vague memory repeatedly and to record it.
80. Cf. Spence, Narrative Truth, 97.
81. Cf. David Middleton and Derek Edwards, "Conversational Remembering: A Social Psychological Approach," in idem, eds., Collective Remembering (London, 1990), 23-45, esp. 35.
82. Spence, Narrative Truth, 60.
83. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 96-97;
84. Wilkomirski in the radio interview "52 Beste Bücher";
85. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 82, 88-89;
86. cf. Spence, Narrative Truth, 61.
87. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 82-83, 90.
88. Sparr in a letter to Koralnik, 20 Sept. 1994;
89. Markus Payer, "Die Falle der Erinnerung schnappt zu," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sunday edition, 18 Jan. 1996.
90. Video interview, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., 26 Sept. 1997, tape 6.
91. The passage is included in the American edition, Wilkomirski, Fragments, 494. But it is also missing in the French edition.
92. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 118-19, 286-93;
93. H.G. of N.J. in a letter to Wilkomirski, 23 Jan. 1998.
94. For the reception in Switzerland and Germany cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 274-308, for the United States 310-15;
95. with a psychoanalytic approach M. Neukom, "Die Rhetorik des Traumas: Wie die Betroffenheit im Fall Wilkomirski blind macht," Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22/23 May 1999;
96. cf. Neukom, "Die Rhetorik des Traumas in G.-A. Goldschmidts Erzählung Die Absonderung," in Zeitschrift für psychoanalytische Theorie und Praxis, no. 3 (2001).
97. R. Münke, "Fragments, by Binjamin Wilkomirski," In Focus: The Newsletter of the Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis 2, no. 1 (spring 1997).
98. Cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 116, 283.
99. Gabor Hirsch in an e-mail to me, 30 March 2001.
100. Hirsch adds the comment: "There is also no incentive to present yourself as a survivor. At least that's the way I see it." For further doubts see Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 111-12, 114-15, 205-8.
101. The following episode according to Wilkomirski, e-mail to Elena Lappin, 20 Dec. 1998
102. Blake Eskin, "A Life in Pieces: The Making of Binjamin Wilkomirski," 21 Oct. 1998, unpublished exposé
103. for a book project for the publishing house Norton. For Wilkomirski's research in Riga cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 72-73, 165-67.
104. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 123-28, 204-10.
105. Jona Oberski, Childhood, trans. Ralph Manheim (Garden City, NY, 1983)
106. German edition: Kinderjahre (Vienna, 1980);
107. the corresponding film, Jona che visse nella balena, dir. Roberto Faenza (Italy, 1993), 91 min.
108. I owe the link to the film to Eva Lezzi. Cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 316.
109. Conversation with K.M., 10 Nov. 1999;
110. Wilkomirski, Fragments, 472-74, 475-80, 486-9;
111. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 52-53.
112. Cf. Sem Dresden, Holocaust und Literatur (Frankfurt/M., 1997);
113. Andrea Reiter, "Auf dass sie entsteigen der Dunkelheit": Die literarische Bewältigung von KZErfahrung (Vienna, 1995).
114. Commendatory statements by experts can be found in Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 116-17.
115. Cf. also Birgit R. Erdle, "Traumatisiertes Gedächtnis und zurückgewiesene Erinnerung," in Corina Caduff, ed., Figuren des Fremden in der Schweizer Literatur (Zurich, 1997), 153-74;
116. Sarah Traister-Moskovitz, "Account of Child Survivor: Fact or Fiction? - Does It Really Make a Difference?," in Martyrdom and Resistance (May/June 1999), ed. International Society for Yad Vashem;
117. cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 280.
118. Judith Greenberg, "The Echo of Trauma and the Trauma of Echo," in American Imago 55, no. 3 (1998): 319-47, 323-24.
119. Psychologists have also cited Wilkomirski on various websites as a paradigmatic case of traumatic memory. In his interview with me, he himself made repeated reference to the trauma specialist Robert Krell. His library contains books by Hans Keilson, whose concept was used by Erdle. Cf. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 63-65.
120. For a narrative approach see Spence, Narrative Truth;
121. Jerome Bruner, "The Autobiographical Process," in Robert Folkenflik, ed., The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation (Stanford, 1993), 38-56;
122. Joseph de Rivera and Theodore R. Sarbin, eds., Believed-In Imaginings: The Narrative Construction of Reality (Washington, 1998). Alain Finkielkraut's The Imaginary Jew was partly responsible for prompting the following reasoning.
123. Wilkomirski, Fragments, in Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 379-80, 411-14. The dust cover of the English edition (Picador) states explicitly - in contrast to the book text - that the murdered man was his father.
124. Finkielkraut, Imaginary Jew, 33.
125. Maechler, Wilkomirski Affair, 114, 256, 314.
126. Wilkomirski, Fragments, 436-37;
127. cf. also video interview, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, tape 4.
128. Wilkomirski in a letter to Hanna Zweig, 3 July 2001.
129. The reason was a reader's letter sent by Zweig to the Berner Zeitung, in which she criticized an anti- Semitically slanted column on Israel, which appeared on 16 June 2001. In the same letter Wilkomirski defends Norman Finkelstein against criticism. Presumably he knows of the latter's book The Holocaust Industry (London, 2000) only through the media, since it contains harsh criticism of Wilkomirski himself.
130. Vered Berman, Wanda's List, pt. 1 (1994) and 2 (1995);
131. Esther van Messel, Fremd Geboren (1997), Dschoint Ventschr, Zurich, 52/60 min.;
132. Eric Bergkraut, Das gute Leben ist nur eine Falle: Ein Besuch bei Binjamin Wilkomirski (1997), 3sat, 46 min.