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Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders

Author(s) : Jan Borowicz

Reviews and Endorsements

Whereas perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust are well defined subjects, bystanders remain ambiguous and difficult to understand. Although often described as indifferent to the witnessed violence, in his brilliant study Perverse Memory and the Holocaust, Jan Borowicz assumes that the bystander position must also evoke extreme emotions, which he qualifies as "perverse". In this context "perverse" is a defense structure that prevents the examination of reality and that allows the bystander to freely live in contradiction and to avoid responsibility, guilt, and suffering. He has totally convinced me that only a psychoanalytic approach can do justice to and understand the ambiguity of the perverse emotions bystanders felt.
Ernst van Alphen, Professor Emeritus of Literary Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands

Bystanders are not uninvolved, Jan Borowicz shows this aspect in many facets. Courageously and uncompromisingly, Jan Borowicz shows us the dirty secret of Poland: confidants and bystanders not only saw the crimes of the Nazis, they also felt something about them. The aspect of excitement and satisfaction, the triumph over the murder of millions of people can no longer be hidden after reading the book, the perverse memory can no longer be glossed over or whitewashed by reinterpreting it. It continues to have an unconscious and preconscious effect in the following generations. The courageous psychoanalytical study of Jan Borowicz can be understood as an interpretation to uncovering the denial in the Polish memory.
Elisabeth Brainin and Samy Teicher, Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (IPA), Austria