Gräueltaten lassen sich jedoch nicht begraben. Ebenso stark wie der Wunsch, sie zu leugnen, ist die Überzeugung, dass dies nichts bringt. Die Volksweisheit sagt: Es gibt Geister, die sich weigern, in ihren Gräbern zu ruhen, bis ihre Geschichten erzählt sind.
Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, veröffentlicht 1992 bei Basic Books (New York)
Der Satz bzw. das Zitat stammt wortwörtlich aus dem Einleitungskapitel („Introduction“) des Buches:
Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, veröffentlicht 1992 bei Basic Books (New York):
„Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told.“
(Einleitung)
Darüber hinaus formuliert Herman zu Beginn ihrer Einleitung noch klarer:
„The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness… Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.“
Und:
„The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.“
Zusammenfassung
Autorin: Judith Lewis Herman
Werk: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
Erscheinungsjahr: 1992 (Einleitung)
Wortlaut (englisch):
„Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told.“
„The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.“
Krise? Welche Krise? 