Cultural Memory Of The Holocaust Video
Women During the Holocaust Cultural Memory Of The HolocaustShop by category
On October 6 thDr. I had the opportunity to sit with her virtually for a fascinating conversation, as she discussed her work on the interplay between fiction and history in 20th century Spain. Tibisay Navarro-Mana : What sparked your interest in Spanish history, and specifically the experience of Spaniards that were deported to Mauthausen? Sara Brenneis: My interest in Spanish history blossomed when I lived for a year as an undergraduate student in Madrid.
Additional site navigation
I was an exchange student living with a host family, and I just remember being really intrigued by the conversations around the Francoist period. I was living with two younger hosts; one of whom was gay and had a partner, which sparked a lot of conversations about the transition and Spain opening up. On the other hand, I would hear from my host mother about the dictatorship, and I just became fascinated about that period of Spanish history. All this was before the law of historical memory.
So that was what opened me up to Spanish history. During your talk, you focused on the representation of victims through literature or through art, specifically the drawings in their memoirs. How do you think that adds, or even changes, the learning of this history as Thee to more traditional or official narratives?
Do you think these cultural representations bring a different perspective?
Navigation menu
I firmly believe that art, literature, drawings, photographs, film, and narratives actualizes what we think of traditional historiography. It is something that I have been working with since I was in graduate school. We can read the historiography; we can learn about the facts, the data, but its representation in fiction provides an idea of the personal side of the experiences. He consciously wrote a fictional account, but what happens in the novel the details and the context is all historically accurate.
It just gives us a different lens through which to view the history of Mauthausen. Can you speak more about historical memory in Spain and about the different here that work in trying to keep this memory alive? Sure, it has really become a groundswell of what I would call grassroots movements. Amical de Mauthausenfor example, the main organization that works with Spanish survivors and family members of victims of Mauthausen, has been around since the s.]
Very useful piece