Heinz, by Henry Raczymow: Writing on Silence

Abstract

In a long series of books, Raczymow explored the past of his Polish Jewish family, from the Belleville quarter of his childhood to the lost world of pre-war Poland and the Shoah itself. Heinz, his most recent autobiographical work, is the acme of the series and the focus of the present article. This text is both an attempt to reconstruct the short history of Heinz, the author’s uncle, who was deported and whose first name he received, and a quest after his own identity, where his family relations and especially his maternal bond are at stake. How can the trauma of Heinz’s disappearance find an expression here? By what literary means, does the author say this experience without saying it, express it without filling up the void of Heinz’s absence?