The Theme of Poetry Recital in Concentration-Camp Literature: Shalamov, Semprún, and Other Witnesses

Abstract

A recurrent theme of narratives by concentration-camp survivors is reciting poetry. For intellectuals in the camps, reciting verses was an aid to survival, a loophole of mental freedom, available only when the prisoners were not being driven to depletion at “general works.” Poetry also facilitated genuine human contact, helped the prisoners inscribe themselves into specific historical and cultural traditions, and re-mediated the verses that belonged to those traditions. The latter function of poetry recital was operative not only during the imprisonment but also during the composition of the narratives after the liberation: the memoirists not only found meanings in the cultural traditions on which their sense of identity depended but also helped to maintain these traditions for their own sake.