Visual archives and the holocaust

Christian Boltanski, Ydessa Hendeles and Peter Forgacs

Ernst van Alphen

pp. 137-155

in: Antoon van den Braembussche, Heinz Kimmerle, Nicole Note (eds), Intercultural aesthetics, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

The archive occupies a privileged position within the cluster of genres by means of which one represents, teaches and commemorates the Holocaust. This cluster consists exclusively of historical genres. The genres that are considered to be the most appropriate to depict the Holocaust events are those that are historical par excellence, those that do not provide a fictional account of history, but that offer history in its most direct, tangible form. Testimonies, autobiographical accounts of the Holocaust and documentaries are the forms supposed to provide the best and the most responsible account of the Holocaust.Within this group of affiliated genres the position of the archive is emblematic as well as different. It is emblematic because its historical function is out of the question: it consists of leftovers, material traces of the past. But it also differs from the other historical genres, because it does not represent history by means of narrative; it presents it directly, that is unmediated, in the form of its remains. The hierarchy within the cluster of historical genres indicates what the issue is: that genre is considered most appropriate that stays closest to the factual events.