Reviving a Voice
Prosopopoeia and Rhetorical Witnessing in Espen Söbyes Kathe, alltid vært i Norge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v29i90.359Keywords:
Listening, Holocaust, Rhetorical Witnessing, ArchiveAbstract
In recent years, archives have increasingly figured as objects of rhetorical research. As sites of rhetorical power, archives regulate our access to the past and determine the stories that can be told about historical events. In this essay, I study a biographical work by statistician Espen Söbye, Kathe, alltid vaert i Norge (2003), where the author details his archival encounter with a few words penned by a Jewish girl, Kathe Lasnik, who was eventually deported to Auschwitz from Nazi occupied Norway in 1942. I argue that Söbye’s text elaborates a particular form of rhetorical witnessing by reviving Kathe Lasnik’s voice through the figure prosopopoeia. Through this rhetorical gesture, the author makes it possible for a contemporary readership to take part of Lasnik’s life story. However, this very act of mediation, I conclude, runs the risk of reducing Lasnik to an avatar of suffering, which raises pressing questions about the ethical ramifications of rhetorical witnessing.
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