Post-Translation and Holocaust Memory in Social Media: The Case of Eva Stories

Abstract

This article aims to show that, in the digital age, traditional definitions of meaning, text, and translation are insufficient to reflect the virtual reality in which digital texts circulate. Virtual social networks are an ideal space for the (re)production of discourses and (re)presentation of identities and cultures. Just as the so-called shift from the monomodal to the multimodal represents a turning point in our way of perceiving meaning, text, and translation, the prevalent use of new media and screen-based communication requires new translation paradigms that reject the pre-established dichotomies of the discipline and attend to the multimodal, open, and fluid character of the texts that we receive, read, and share daily. With the proliferation of mediations and intermediaries between events and their narration, it is not unreasonable to question today how these events have been translated and how their discourses are post-translated within this digital space. In order to show how new texts are remediated and constitute rewritings and post-translations, this paper analyzes Eva Stories (Instagram, 2019), a mini-series launched on Instagram Stories, as a post-translation of Éva Heyman’s diary (Zsolt, 1948) remediated and retold through a different medium and in a completely different context. Éva was a 13-year-old victim of the Holocaust. This event, though repeatedly defined as ineffable, has been represented, rewritten, translated, and post-translated in countless ways, thereby giving rise to on-going ethical debates the article also seeks to address.