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Article

English, Italian

ID: <

oai:doaj.org/article:99fa72d34fdd492fbbbfa5052243a803

>

·

DOI: <

10.13130/2037-3597/15017

>

Where these data come from
IN BABELE DEL LAGER: LANGUAGES, WORDS AND COMMUNICATION IN THE NAZI CAMPS

Abstract

“Language confusion is a fundamental part of the way of life of quaggiu; it is surrounded by a perpetual Babele, in which everyone hurts orders and threats in languages that have never previously heard and go to those who do not take a flight,” writes First Levi in If this is a man, trying to find the right words to describe a feeling constantly experienced by deported people in Auschwitz’s Nazi lager. The issues of incommunicability within the lager, the deprivation of the word and the possibility of understanding are present in all the written and oral testimonies of the Italian survivors of deportations, who try to move towards the plurilingualism of the concentrated reality. Studying the language of the lager means passing through the words of Nazi hatred, humiliation and violence, but also deepening the human value of communication between deportations, through a language of solidarity, hope and resistance. The study of language in a particular context such as that of the lager thus becomes a means of investigating the concentration system from within it and trying to rediscover the voices of those who visit it. In the Babel of the lager: languages, words and communication in nazi camps “The fusion of languages is a fundamental component of living here; one is replaced by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide Whoever fails to GRASP the meaning” These words were written in If this is a man, book by prime Levi, and they are an attempt to describe a significant feeling of prisoners in the Nazi lager of Auschwitz. Italian Survivors had to instruggle to orient teachers in the multilingualism of the Nazi lager system and we find traces of this in their testimonies, both written and oral. They speak about themes such as the impossibility to express redundancies inside the lager, the lack of opportunities to be understated and to Comprehend others. Studying the language of lager means to go through the words of hatred, humiliation and Nazi violence, but also to analyse the human value of communication between the deportees, through a language created on solidarity, hope and resistance. By investigating the language in the Nazi lager, we can GRASP the vision of Survivors who pass through all this.

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