Literatur als Medium des Gedächtnisses: "Pojln" von Jehiel Isaiah Trunk

Abstract

The seven-volume semiautobiographical work by Yekhiel Yeshaye Trunk, Poyln, provides a broad picture of Jewish life in Poland from the second half of the 19th century until the Second World War. It can also be seen as a medium of collective memory, because after the Shoah, it were especially the works of the Jewish literature which had to take over this role. Trunk’s autobiography has got an additional value for the reader, since the author, being not only a writer but also a literary critic, presents, in the introductions to the first and the last volume, his thoughts concerning the form and the goals of the autobiographical literature.