learning from the past, however painful the process may be. This tendency to "hollow

out" the event, points out Michael Rothberg, "not only acts out a traumatic past .. but

actively constructs the past as traumatic."205 Additionally, privileging the figure of the

Jews as an "excess" by trapping them within the social imaginary as an everlasting

marginal or misfit group is a highly questionable practice that amounts to objectifying

and victimizing them all over again. These dubious practices again rob them of their

agency and subjecthood. In this kind of discourse, the Jews are again driven beyond the

realm of the human, this time as an elevated, quasi-aesthetic or philosophical object.

Even in contemporary cultural discourses which involve "romancing" or "hyping"

survival, survivors, and redemption, this highly tendentious attempt at simplification of

the Holocaust and elevation of Holocaust survivors continues to distort and muddy a

clear understanding, obstructing a critical approach to thinking through and reappraising

the Holocaust as a complex historical event.

 What is evident from these "othering" discourses is that narratives in themselves do

not have any positive value or potentiality of healing. If not properly used, narratives can

also obfuscate or deliberately mislead the reader and the audience. The "othering"

discourse about the Holocaust is more often a disguised, defensive deflection of

bystanders' responsibility for or guilt about the past, rather than a genuine effort to work

through the trauma. In this respect, James Young's caveat about the contemporary

enthusiasm for memorial-building and memory-making is worthy of a careful reflection.

In pondering the moral questions imbricated in the commemorative representation of the

Holocaust, Young notes, "It might be possible that the initial impulse to memorialize the