“The Scribe” Zofia Posmysz. A witness to history between truth and post-truth

In the light of Auschwitz and the Holocaust the language of words and the language of images are utterly helpless. They simply resist their content. All attempts to elicit an expression from these languages, all attempts to get them to reveal the truth of what happened – a truth that is utterly unbelievable – remain frustrated because of the sheer amount of emptiness. For this reason, from time to time it is worth limiting the languages and reducing their role to a neutral and subdued account of the facts, which neither attempts to violently substantiate them nor to evaluate them from a moral point of view. Zofia Posmysz uses such a form of language in her accounts of Auschwitz. And I have chosen to use such language in order to pass on her report. 

Maria Anna (Masza) Potocka, September 2017 

Addition by the ed.: 

Zofia Posmysz died shortly before her 99th birthday on 8 August 2022 in Oświęcim.

Published by MOCAK (Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow):
Maria Anna Potocka: Zofia Posmysz. Die Schreiberin [Szrajberka]. 7566. Auschwitz 1942–1945, Kraków/Göttingen 2019 + DVD [pol.: Kraków 2018 & 2. rev. ed. 2021]

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