Else Dormitzer’s Theresienstädter Bilder (1945). Poetry, Testimony, and the Holocaust

Abstract

The year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of Else Dormitzer’s publication Theresienstadter Bilder, a collection of German-language poetry written during the author’s imprisonment in the Theresienstadt ghetto. By analyzing the modalities and discursive entanglements that constitute the hybrid nature of poetic texts produced by prisoners in Theresienstadt, I show how Dormitzer’s poetry from the Holocaust can be read within a testimonial framework and outside of it, and why such a reading is important.