'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
with its ironic “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work will make you free” sign in the postmemory<br />
<strong>of</strong> the second generation to the trauma <strong>of</strong> the first. She argues that “compulsive and<br />
traumatic repetition connects the second generation to the first by producing rather than<br />
screening the effect <strong>of</strong> trauma that was lived” (Hirsch, “Images” 8). Drawing on the<br />
work <strong>of</strong> art historian Jill Bennett, Hirsch suggests that photographs <strong>of</strong> traumatic events<br />
can convey an emotional or bodily experience by evoking the viewer‟s own emotional<br />
and bodily memories. The photographs create an affect in the viewer, speaking from the<br />
body‟s sensation (Hirsch, “Images” 15). Hirsch writes, “This connection between<br />
photography and bodily or sense memory can perhaps account for the power <strong>of</strong><br />
photographs to connect first- and second-generation subjects in an unsettling mutuality<br />
that crosses the gap <strong>of</strong> genocidal destruction” (Hirsch, “Images” 15).<br />
To Hirsch‟s discussion <strong>of</strong> photographs as the main catalysts <strong>of</strong> postmemory, I<br />
would like to add my personal observation that documentary film footage, radio<br />
broadcasts, and the iconography <strong>of</strong> political regimes can also trigger second-generation<br />
memories <strong>of</strong> collective traumatic experiences. As I have discussed in Chapter 2,<br />
Sanders-Brahms intercuts into her fictional narrative images and sounds that have come<br />
to signify the archive <strong>of</strong> the German war and post-war experience. She employs<br />
postmemories, in my broader understanding <strong>of</strong> the term, in the form <strong>of</strong> archival footage<br />
<strong>of</strong> Allied bombing raids, urban ruins, and shots <strong>of</strong> Trümmerfrauen along with radio<br />
broadcasts <strong>of</strong> Hitler‟s speeches in order to historically and politically contextualize the<br />
action <strong>of</strong> her dramatic narrative. Further, she uses images <strong>of</strong> Nazi iconography to similar<br />
effect. For example, in the introductory scene <strong>of</strong> Deutschland, bleiche Mutter, the Nazi<br />
swastika flag is overwhelmingly present and it places the action <strong>of</strong> the enacted story in<br />
90