„Ziemia otworzy usta” : O wyobraźni forensycznej Erny Rosenstein

Abstract

Investigating Erna Rosenstein’s poems containing partial accounts of her parents’ murder after their escape from the Lviv ghetto, this article proposes a reading founded on two categories – forensics and shock – and therefore departs from the principles put forward by historical narratives (including the meticulous reconstruction of facts and pedantic devotedness to their organisation typical of this genre, constructing such a story whose integrity would satisfy the reader whereas moral framework would set formal limits). Forensics – a strategy that emphasises the role of material traces – is related to the clarity of a process and the rise of a community. Intuitively, Rosenstein applies a quasi-crime story narrative to her poetry, which allows it to cross the distance usually separating the victims of the Shoah from a reader belonging to an entirely different reality. The presence of a mystery makes it possible for the murdered to become close to us once again thanks to the medium of a wounded body. Shock, in turn, is a category inherent in any attempt of reaching the unthinkable (that is, the events that have not been lived through or experienced directly). Moreover, it employs affective stimulation which engages a reader in an ethical way. This article consists of three parts, whose division reflects the necessities of scrutinising Rosenstein’s relation to surrealism, exploring her strategy of influencing a reader by means of affect and mood, and probing her status of a precursor, visible in the autonomy granted to the nonhuman actants or her strives for domesticating entropy.