‘The Detours Required’: Sarah Kofman and the ‘Black Milk’ of Hidden Children

Abstract

Sarah Kofman’s belated memoir, Rue Order, Rue Labat, narrates the experiences of a hidden Jewish child in Paris, living out the war in a vexed relationship with two mothers – her biological mother, a Polish immigrant and wife of an Orthodox rabbi, on the one hand; and a Catholic French woman who saves them, on the other. Reading the memoir alongside literary reflections by other child survivors, such as Aharon Appelfeld and Louis Begley, the article focuses on the snippets of literary, cinematic, and artistic analysis published elsewhere that Kofman has interpellated into the autobiographical details. Taken together, these critical readings and the personal narratives gesture towards the internalization and aftereffects of the Shoah for hidden children.