Reading Memory. Silence, Time and Emotions in Ida Fink’s Short Stories

Abstract

Ida Fink was the author of short stories gathered in the collections A Scrap of Time and Other Stories and Traces: Stories as well as the autobiographical novel The Journey. The works of this Polish-language writer of Jewish descent, who in 1942 escaped with her sister from the Zbaraż ghetto, can be described as heartbreaking, though she rarely uses the word “death” and her narratives are devoid of grand adjectives. The authors of this article argue that Fink’s works can be analyzed in the perspective of memory studies as they belong to the culture of remembrance. Fink talks about the Holocaust from the perspective of private and individual testimonies; she shows the sociohistorical contexts of Polish-Jewish relations; and presents human behavior in the face of death. Analyzing Fink’s works, the authors of this article conclude that the essential elements of the author’s narratives are silence and time. Cognitive and empathic reading of Fink’s works with school pupils allowed them to show that Fink’s narratives are also understandable and well received by young audiences.