Microhistories of Memory Culture. "Through the Night" and the Remediation of the Holocaust by bullets: Who shapes memory cultures? How do images of recent history affect their users? What infrastructures activate cultural memories? Based on three micro-historical studies of the novel, the radio play, and the television series "Am grünen Strand der Spree" (1955-1960, published in English as “Through the Night”), Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska explores the German circulation of memory of the mass shootings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II.
Memory cultures do not emerge out of nowhere. They are negotiated and constructed by social actors. The novel, radio play and television series "Through the Night”, describe the liquidation of the ghetto in Orsha, in November 1941. Basing on these descriptions, Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska examines how memories of the ‘Holocaust by bullets’ circulated in the early Federal Republic of Germany. From three different perspectives, she analyzes the actors, the impact, and the material background of these accounts. In doing so, Saryusz-Wolska goes deep into detail and traces the mechanisms that move (or stop) the memory of the ‘Holocaust by bullets’. How was it possible that an account of a Nazi crime appeared in early West Germany and was adapted for radio and television? Why have only specialist known all versions of "Through the Night" so far? Do the novel, the radio play, and the television series regain popularity?
The book is published as an open access edition in the series "Medien und Kulturelle Erinnerung" (Vol. 8) by De Gruyter Verlag. Saryusz-Wolska, Magdalena. Microhistories of Memory Culture: "Through the Night" and the Remediation of the Holocaust by bullets, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022, 309 p., ISBN: 9783110745528, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110745528
Open Access: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110745528/html
