THE HOLOCAUST, INVESTIGATIVE DISCOURSE AND BARE LIFE – TRAUMA AND MEMORY

Abstract

The work will primarily explore the position and status of the Jews in the post-war Yugoslavia, especially in relation to the momentous year of 1948, which represents the final split between Tito and Stalin, the fact that caused some radical changes in Yugoslavia and deaths of an enormous number of people who were thought to have been political dissidents. Also, the work will touch upon the position of the Jews during the World War II which, although not as unbearable as in the rest of the world, was far from something to be desired. Further, the paper will deal with the investigative discourse employed by Danilo Kiš during his interview with Eva Nahir Panić and Jennie Lebel, two women who survived Goli otok and whose testimonies Danilo Kiš was to use in the making of his documentary Bare life in collaboration with the director Aleksandar Mandić, first broadcasted in 1990. In the context of the aforementioned physical torture that political dissidents had to endure on Goli otok and Sveti Grgur, the work will make use of the novel by Antonije Isaković entitled Tren 2 which, though fiction, gives an insight into how political dissidents were treated by the authorities and which methods were used in their re-education. The analysis will try to show that evil and repression are inseparable, inherent parts of every totalitarian regime, regardless of geographical area or time of its existence.