Lutte pour la connaissance et la compréhension dans l'écriture concentrationnaire de Charlotte Delbo,Jorge Semprun et Germaine Tillion.

Abstract

Deported for acts of resistance in Nazi concentration camps, Charlotte Delbo, Jorge Semprun and Germaine Tillion testify about this horrific experience through their works. Their autobiographical, fictional or historical writings convey the uncertainty and anxiety that deportees felt as they arrived at the camp, immersed in an unknown and incomprehensible world. This study explores the various lacks of knowledge and understanding, and their consequences, expressed in their works. To resist the dehumanization and the destruction of the self, some detainees fought actively for information. This was especially true for Tillion. Her training as an ethnologist gave her the tools to gather information and to analyze the concentration camp system. This dissertation examines the methods used by Tillion for the collection, analysis and dissemination of information. It focuses particularly on the role of Le Verfügbar aux Enfers, her humorous operetta written while detained in Ravensbrück, in the propagation of concentration camp knowledge to the other inmates in the camp. The works of the three writers also mention the problems of knowledge and understanding that survivors faced after returning from concentration camps. However, the authors express the need both to understand this experience and to be understood. To do so, Tillion published three editions of her historical work Ravensbrück before authorizing the publication of the play Le Verfügbar aux Enfers at the end of her life. Delbo chose a mixture of prose and poetry in the trilogy Auschwitz et après, and also turned to theater. As for Semprun, he prefered the novel and the autobiography, incorporating fiction into reality. This research investigates the role of writing, and more specifically literature, in the transmission of the experience and the knowledge that ensues from it.