Functions of a Fairy Tale in the Auschwitz Camp Memories of Zofia Posmysz
Functions of a Fairy Tale in the Auschwitz Camp Memories of Zofia Posmysz

Summary/Abstract: The article gives a multifaceted interpretation of the functions of a concentration camp fairy tale from the perspective of folklore studies (i.e. its socio-integrative, aesthetic, didactic/educational, compensatory/cathartic and trauma management functions) and literary studies (strategies of women’s writing about the Holocaust and the war, and the camp testimony). The author anal- yses the novel Wakacje nad Adriatykiem (1970) and an extended interview Królestwo za mgłą (2017) by Zofia Posmysz, an inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe, who stylised her camp memories as a traditional folk tale, thus commemorating the fairy tales told by her camp friend Zofia Jachimczak, who did not survive Auschwitz. The author comes to the conclusion that a concentration camp fairy tale seems to be a complete genre and a comprehensive structure of meaning that makes it possible to express the inexpressible.

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