Translating Pain: Art, Trauma, and The Political Memory of Nazism in German Cultural Consciousness

Book: Cultural Memory in Translation: Revisiting Cultural Memory Through Interpretative Lens from India by CSMFL Publications

Dr. Preeti Sharma
Assistant Professor, KCC Institute of Technology and Management Greater Noida, UttarPradesh, India.

10.46679/9789349926639ch21
This chapter is a part of: Cultural Memory in Translation: Revisiting Cultural Memory Through Interpretative Lens from India
ISBN (Ebook):978-93-49926-63-9
ISBN (Hardcover Print):978-93-49926-41-7
ISBN (Softcover Print):978-93-49926-75-2

© CSMFL Publications & its authors.
Published: November 10, 2025

Sharma, P. (2025). Translating Pain: Art, Trauma, and The Political Memory of Nazism in German Cultural Consciousness. In A. G. Uppal & D. Barot, Cultural Memory in Translation: Revisiting Cultural Memory Through Interpretative Lens (pp 291-310). CSMFL Publications. https://dx.doi.org/10.46679/9789349926639ch21

Abstract

This paper explores how art, trauma, and political memory interplay within the collective memory of Nazism in postwar Germany. It focuses upon the manner in which cultural memory can be translated and is mediated by means of various artistic expressions including literature and visual art along with film plus memorial architecture and it also investigates the manner in which Germany has grappled with its own Nazi past and with the Holocaust. This study uses multiple disciplines as it examines cultural productions that represent traumatic history through silence or new interpretations. This is done through drawing upon trauma theory and also memory studies with translation theory. “Translation” functions as a metaphor representing memory’s transformation and transmission through generations and media outside the linguistic meaning. In the paper, key artistic works and memorial projects that seek to handle the challenges of atrocity remembering are examined. It also addresses shaping of what is remembered along with what is forgotten by the role of public discourse in addition to state-sponsored memory politics. The paper argues these practices enable critical engagement as well as emotional processing regarding historical violence by situating them within broader theoretical frameworks. It also warns against trauma’s commodification or aestheticization however because this risks contemporary audiences distancing themselves from Nazism’s historical realities. The study does ultimately reveal how cultural memory acts as a site of mourning as well as a platform for continuing political reckoning. This helps shape Germany’s changing identity as a nation after the Holocaust.

Keywords: Cultural Memory, Trauma Theory, Nazism, Collective Memory, Translation in Art, Memory Politics.

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