Memory vs. History: An Uncanny Encounter

Vladimir Biti

Abstract： In the frame of European modernity， memory is for the first time massively engaged as a counter-project to the victorious history by the victims of French Revolution， both within and outside the French national body. Nobody would feel the need to restore his or her neglected life itineraries without having been previously hurt by an unexpected and violent severance from his or her familiar past. French aristocracy was forced into exile. As regards the Germans， their historical trauma was induced by the destruction of the Empire， the institution of new monarchies， and the ensuing feelings of a catastrophe， dizziness， and senselessness. Remedying his wounded self， the early German Romanticist Novalis famously stated： “We should not take life to be a novel given to us， but one made by us.” Rather than taking the self as a firm given， the Romanticists turn it into a work of art on-the-permanent-move. After offering a short genealogy of this European tradition of conceptualizing such flexible self， the paper focuses on Walter Benjamins Berlin Childhood around 1900， a loose collection of memories engendered by the traumatic situation of a German Jew faced with the rising Nazism. He engages childhood， in a wishful and retroactive projection， as a screen that absorbs the present shock， filters the impact of the present trauma and diminishes its harm. Operating as an inexhaustible source of his longing， such imaginary childhood does not abolish his unhomeliness but unleashes its itinerancy.

Key words： Memory， history， trauma， childhood

內(nèi)容摘要：在歐洲現(xiàn)代性的框架下，記憶最早被來自法蘭西國家內(nèi)外的法國革命的受害者大規(guī)模地用作對(duì)抗勝利者歷史的策略。那些感到有必要恢復(fù)早被塵封的生活面貌的人們無不遭受過由于意想不到的暴力原因而與自己熟悉的過去隔離所導(dǎo)致的傷痛：法國貴族是被迫流亡;而德國人的歷史創(chuàng)傷則是因?yàn)榈蹏鴾缤龊托戮髡w的建立以及由此而產(chǎn)生的災(zāi)難感、眩暈感和麻木感。為了治療受到創(chuàng)傷的自我，德國早期的浪漫主義作家諾瓦利斯曾經(jīng)說過一句名言：“我們不能把生活視為我們被迫接受的小說，而應(yīng)該當(dāng)作我們自己創(chuàng)造的小說?！蓖瑯?，浪漫主義作家們沒有把自我當(dāng)做被迫接受的實(shí)體，而是將它轉(zhuǎn)化為一件恒變的藝術(shù)品。本文簡(jiǎn)要梳理了這類彈性自我被概念化的歐洲傳統(tǒng)的譜系，重點(diǎn)對(duì)本雅明的《1900年前后的柏林童年》進(jìn)行了分析。這部結(jié)構(gòu)松散的集子充滿了關(guān)于德國納粹主義興起時(shí)期德國猶太人的創(chuàng)傷記憶，作者在書中一廂情愿地追溯的童年，吸收了當(dāng)下的重大事件、過濾了當(dāng)前創(chuàng)傷的影響、消解了創(chuàng)傷的傷害。這一童年想象作為本雅明表達(dá)愿景的不竭源泉，沒有消除他的非家幻覺，反而放縱了他的巡游性。

關(guān)鍵詞：記憶;歷史;暗恐;創(chuàng)傷;童年

Against the grain of triumphant history： From Romanticism to today

In the frame of Western modernity， the victims of French Revolution， both within and outside the French national body， are the first who massively engage memory as a counter-project to the triumphant history. Nobody would feel the need to restore his or her neglected itineraries without having been previously hurt by historical developments. History hurts especially some of its participants. In the aftermath of French Revolution， for example， French aristocracy was forced into exile. As regards the Germans， their historical trauma was induced by the destruction of their Empire， the institution of new monarchies， and the ensuing feelings of dizziness and senselessness that befell some German groups and individuals. These “stranded” agencies feelings of dispossession were the basic precondition for their project of reanimation of that which history had mortified in their present selves. Remedying his wounded self， Novalis famously stated： “We should not take life to be a novel given to us， but one made by us” （Novalis 1981： 563）.① This typical early Romanticist dictum， which in its turn stimulated Friedrich Schlegel to regard biography as the work of life-art， can be linked to Novaliss earlier observation according to which “[t]he beginning [of the self] emerges later than the self; this is why the self cannot have begun. We see therefrom that we are in the realm of art here…” （Novalis 1983： 253） Because the beginning of the self is necessarily constructed retroactively， i.e. artistically， the self is an artificial rather than natural phenomenon， a ‘work of art. Instead of being a firm given， it is a construct on the permanent move.

The early German Romanticists ongoing commemoration of their selves past set the pattern for the coming generations of “stranded” agencies in the aftermath of various historical catastrophes. According to Nietzsches argument in The Use and Abuse of History for Life （1874）， memory comes into play to counteract history and offer an antidote to its doctrinaire rigidity. （1957： 12） Unlike history， it uses the past selectively and creatively， i.e. not for the sake of dead eternity but for the ongoing needs of life. Rather than taming the past by the allegedly superior wisdom of the present， memory acts in reverse， i.e. it releases the liberating potential of the past to transform that which the present has regrettably come to be. By saving numerous local and personal histories from the present distortion， silence and oblivion， remembrance opens the vista of their preservation for the generations to come.

Writing in his doctoral thesis in the shadow of the First World Wars apocalypse （1917-1919） Walter Benjamin recalls Novaliss artistically constructed self. Benjamin finished his dissertation in the same year that gave birth to Sigmund Freuds famous essay on the uncanny. Significantly following another German Romanticist Friedrich Schlegel， Freud defines the uncanny as a ghostly appearance that unexpectedly steps out from its apocryphal， hidden existence. （Freud 1947a： 232） Although history envisioned oblivion for such “overcome ways of thinking，” their sudden resurfacing disconcerts the present reality in the form of an indeterminate “sense of déjà vu” （Freud 1947b： 295）. Due to such a breakthrough of the unconscious into the conscious register， something that was hitherto considered to be evident acquires a spectral character， thereby inducing the uncanny feeling of reverberation. In his essay on Goethes Elective Affinities （1924-1925） and the simultaneously composed Origin of German Tragic Drama， Benjamin gave expression to this uneasy resonance by introducing， next to some other concepts， the notion of the “expressionless.” In the essay， he states that the “expressionless” follows every work of art like a sad shadow of death by smashing its whole into an agglomeration of pieces and by forcing its aesthetic harmony to quiver and tremble （Benjamin 1977： 116）. This rendering of the uncanny， which stresses the disaggregate composition of the work of art， finds its rich elaboration in Benjamins conception of allegory from The Origin of German Tragic Drama. In this book， “a torso of a symbol” as a simile for the work of art from the essay on Goethe transforms into a “desolate confusion of execution sites” （Benjamin 1980： 401）， which testifies to historys misguidances. In such a devastated world， the work of art cannot be anything other than a patchwork of remnants， which postpones its completion to an unpredictable future. Linking commemoration to postponement， Benjamin makes the present into a zone of transition.

Next to Benjamin and Freud， the uncanny feeling of unhomeliness in the world following the First World War also haunted Martin Heidegger， as his careful reader Jacques Derrida did not fail to notice. In a 2001 round-table discussion， Derrida himself confessed that das Unheimliche （in the meaning of both the uncanny and unhomely） is one of his philosophys most important obsessions： “So I try to understand what das Unheimliche means in this German epoch， the first part of the twentieth century—why is it the best name， the best concept， for something which resists consistency， system， semantic identity？ Why is it the experience， the most thinking experience in Freud and in Heidegger？” （Derrida 35） Emerging in the traumatic aftermath of the Second World War， Derridas thought is obsessed with the rise of das Unheimliche after the First World War because he， like Benjamin， obviously feels attached to the agencies stranded in their presents. It appears to him， as it did to them， that the present is sentenced to the “discontinuity of standing alone without a companion” （Schad 188-189）. The past as its most natural companion lost familiarity， withdrawing into a sort of ‘spectral existence and thus forcing anyone who wants to draw on the tradition into a kind of uncanny encounter.

Derridas translation of the relationship between the present and the past into an uncanny encounter powerfully resonates in the work of his friend Paul de Man who made himself famous as an inheritor of both the early Romanticist legacy and Benjamins concept of allegory. Being himself haunted by the Second World Wars trauma ─ although from another side， that of a “collaborator”─ in the essay “Autobiography as De-Facement” he renders the relationship between the autobiographers present and past self in analogously spectral terms. Stranded by the triumph of history， the autobiographers present self unexpectedly encounters his or her forever lost past self. Following this line of argument， De Man defines the autobiographic relationship as an “apostrophe to an absent， deceased， or voiceless entity， which posits the possibility of the latters reply and confers upon it the power of speech” （De Man 75-6）. The present self does not only confer language ability upon the past self but also a face.

In its response， the bygone self not only eludes to the imposed identification but undoes it. The autobiographer does not manage to repair the loss. That which unknowingly drives him or her is， after all， not so much the past as the “true” place of his or her belonging. He or she is instead entrapped in longing for it. While striving to retake possession of its ‘object that is forever lost， autobiography involuntarily demonstrates a “floating desire.” Although it intentionally operates as a goal-oriented wish， by yearning for that which it cannot possess， it actually functions as an uncontrollable nostalgia. Inasmuch as the autobiographic recollection is mobilized by a wound inflicted by history， the trauma as its trigger is located beyond the horizon of the self that memorizes. From that hidden place， it persistently “screens，” “covers” or “veils” his or her memories， dispossessing the memorizer of that which he or she invokes for the sake of repair.

Nonetheless， taking recourse to the Greek idea of the symbolon cut in half， the German theorist of memory Aleida Assmann recently suggested the possibility of a harmonious completion of the remembrance of the past. She claims that， as soon as an object or place that was abandoned in the past activates present resonances in the memorizers bodily archive， the symbolons once severed parts happily reconnect （Assmann 122）. But in Benjamins interpretation， the symbols remnant inhabits space and time beyond those of its memorizer， which means that Assmanns metaphor of symbolon disregards the historical fractures that trigger the childhood recollections. In her critique of Assmann， the U.S.-American theorist of memory Marianne Hirsch cautions that， due to traumas， war， exile which disrupt all heritage lines， “ ‘[h]ome becomes a place of no return” （Hirsch 212）. To prevent confrontation with the uncanny feeling of unhomeliness that follows from such dispossession， the memorizer defends himself or herself by developing the illusion that images from the past “have a memory of their own that they bring to us from the past.” To underpin this illusion， he or she engages the familial trope as “a powerful idiom of remembrance in the face of detachment and forgetting” （52）. However， this defensive screen memory masks “other images and other， as yet unthought and unthinkable， concerns” （48）. As a result， there is no harmonious reunion but exclusion.

The childhood recollection that I shall try to investigate in the following reading—Walter Benjamins Berlin Childhood around 1900—engages childhood， in a wishful and retroactive projection， as a screen that absorbs the present shock， filters the impact of the present trauma and diminishes its harm. Rather than offering a safe abode to the exiled self， his remedial image of childhood conjures up his counterfactual pasts， alternate identities and missed itineraries. Operating as an inexhaustible source of his longing rather than the firm place of his belonging， it does not abolish his unhomeliness but， on the contrary， unleashes its itinerancy. This is how childhood recollections， in the manner of all trauma narratives， turn the dispossession of subjects of their home into the privilege of their mobility. Their narrators stimulate scattered addressees with similarly effaced lineages， dispersed family communities， and damaged lives to join the community of the dispossessed. They are invited to meet in the operation of “a permanent itinerancy which […] freed itself from the social bonds of home.” This is how itinerancy becomes “the substance of […] individuality” （Fritzsche 180）. With the individuality shaped in such a way， a new， postponed， interminable form of the self on the permanent move enters the scene of the world.

Already the Romanticists had invented individuality as the new form of identification-at-a-distance， driven by a curious “appetite for alterity.” The remembrance of the lost past was placed at the service of its promotion. As the U.S.-American cultural theorist Kaja Silverman pertinently remarked， such narrative mediation， through its discursive implanting and medial dissemination， demonstrates the ability to bridge enormous distances across national， linguistic and cultural differences （Silverman 181）. It goes out of ones self and out of ones own cultural norms in order to align this self with distant others. By establishing themselves in the form of trauma narratives， the recollections of the lost past managed to turn their private melancholy into a political force. Opposing the victorious history by stressing the prevalence of loss， they stimulated their scattered addressees to think of themselves as the legatees of a peculiar and distinct past. Along the lines of such “elective affinities，” they silently forged a kind of counter-community. As the U.S.-American historian Peter Fritzsche put it， by “gathering up poignant testimony and creating empathetic readerships， modern history recognizes the suffering of individuals， however selectively” （Fritzsche 8）. In its transformation that gradually acquires a trans-Atlantic scope， it reconfigures cultural practices， re-conceptualizes national differences， restructures the temporal imagination of the masses， and reinvigorates autobiographical and commemorative genres.

A good century thereafter， when， with the First World War， historical catastrophes acquired global proportions， the remembrances of the lost past invited the masses of their victims to give expression to their defacement by reimagining their selves. Thanks to the construction of itinerant individuality， anonymous victims across the world suddenly “felt themselves as contemporaries， as occupants of a common time with mutually recognizable personalities” （10）. They became able “to connect their personal ordeals with larger social narratives” （8）. The remembrances of the lost past thus pulled together writers and readers who felt themselves as victims of the great historys lethal mechanism.

However， if memory， while it opposes history， becomes itself a historical force， then the relationship between memory and history escapes purely oppositional terms. It is true that memory claims to be speaking in the name of the past， as opposed to history that speaks in the name of the present. However the past itself is not original， as memory claims it is， but a retroactive ascription of the selfs present needs， debts and affiliations. Instead of following the memorizer in naturalizing this ascription， the analyst is better advised to uncover the pasts complex and interrelated composition. The memorizer is just a part of his or her traumatic historical constellation， its involuntary constituent. This constellation not only generates his or her unhomeliness but also provides various institutions， technologies， and media that enable coming to terms with it. In such subterraneous way， the historical development shapes the workings of memory that are at pains to counter it. Therefore， instead of siding with either memory or history， the following reading will insist on their suppressed intertwinement. The point will be made that they try to erase this interdependence from their consciousness. Both memory and history conduct the politics of each others oblivion that needs to be exposed and investigated.

Walter Benjamins Berlin Childhood around 1900

The political present as a personal traumas generator

While it scrutinizes the minute sensations of an infants daily life to save them from historical oblivion and erasure， Benjamins Berlin Childhood heals the wounds of an adult caught up in an historical catastrophe. He wrote and rewrote on his autobiographic sketches from 1932-1938， i.e. shortly before and within the period of Hitlers seizure of power， which forced him into exile. However， the threatening developments started much earlier. Weimar Germany， established after the defeat of German Empire in the First World War and shattered by humiliating territorial losses， the political transformation into a republic， and a large influx of ‘homecomers， had already engaged a variety of remedial， compensatory， and restorationist political agendas. In order to divert the residents attention from the impotent state with its damaged institutions， Weimar Germany led a politics of Germandom， assimilating co-nationals in the borderlands and the newly established nation-states. Such a redefinition of the German nation to include these border and transborder co-nationals induced in its turn the exclusion of non-German co-citizens at home， above all the Jews. This spawned the rise of antisemitism in the Weimar Republic that confronted German Jews with uneasy choices.

Under such sinister circumstances， Benjamin had already considered the possibility of emigration in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. He confided in his friend Ernst Schoen in 1919 that he saw a departure from Europe to America “as a necessity” （Benjamin 1996： 23）. A few years later， following the emergence of Zionism， only the destination had changed， with America being replaced by Palestine （although he was against territorial Zionism）. He wrote to Florens Christian Rang in 1923 that he needed to emigrate because he could not fulfil his mission in Europe （370）. In another letter， directed against some of his more shortsighted friends， he revealed the cosmopolitan idea of Europe to be a fallacy. For a clairvoyant person like him， Europe was approaching its catastrophe （368）. In her seminal analysis of Benjamins endless deliberations about his emigration from Europe， Vivian Liska enlists the following reasons pro this emigration： the first confrontations with Zionism， the need to learn Hebrew in order to extend his intellectual horizon， the emigration of his friends， an increasing sense of isolation， the rise of antisemitism and conservatism in academic circles that rejected his doctoral thesis， the economic hardship， the growing feeling that Europe was no longer a place for the Jews， and an increasing sense of Europes irreparable decay （Liska 35-36）.

However， a farewell from Europe proved to be anything but an easy matter， which made Benjamin continuously postpone it despite his situation worsening by the day. In fact， his “Zionism of the spirit” drew heavily on his hyphenated Jewish-European （Benjamin 1996： 71）， which in his case implied Europe as a “writing factory” and the “institution of production” of his thinking （368）. That is to say， Europe as a “workshop” provided instruments and operations， but their perilous constellation required a reconfiguration. Benjamins subversive thought could hardly have imagined a better room for its critical and experimental maneuvering. He could subscribe to Karl Krauss famous statement that the Jews were “fated to dissolve entirely into their surrounding cultures， and nevertheless still remain a ferment in them” （Kraus 23）. This historically allocated internal exteriority generated， at least in Europe， the Jewish mission of an ongoing reinvention of “given facts，” a sort of “secular version of the chosen peoples” mission that took advantage of the “zone of indistinction” into which the Jews were relegated in post-imperial Europe. In 1938， when he completed the final version of Berlin Childhood in French exile， Benjamin celebrated this “marvelous room for maneuver” with the significant remark that “the catastrophe will not know it.”

Vivian Liska elucidates this pregnant statement in the following way：

The catastrophe will not know the room for maneuver as genuine to the free thinking bereft of preconditions because it knows only that which is already pre-given and pre-thought. In it， there is no opening onto alterity and no exit. Not knowing this room for maneuver—its necessity and possibility—is the catastrophe. （Liska 47）

It is， according to Liska， precisely Benjamins hesitation to leave Europe， or to bereave his Jewishness of it， that creates this room for maneuver and thus counters the catastrophe. This marvelous room would disappear if he would simply choose one of these two options or dialectically translate them into a sort of synthesis. It only can emerge through a hesitant intertwinement of these opposites， through an undecidable conversion of the one in the other. In other words， the only operation that “gives hope” for salvation from the catastrophe is a permanent “bungling” of the act of passing judgment （Benjamin 1996： 431）. “The postponement，” writes Benjamin， “is the hope of the defendant—he merely wants to prevent the trial from transforming into a verdict” （427）. In an analysis of the condition of Central Europe from 1923， Benjamin alternatively describes such maneuvering as “a more or less clear irony with which the life of an individual claims to be developing with regard to the existence of a community in which he or she is stranded” （Benjamin 2000： 919）.

Thus instead of leaving Europe he transformed its historical pressure into his personal memorys room for maneuver. A German Jew who is at pains to create such room to save himself from the catastrophe in a community that suddenly dispossessed him of his rights， is the point of departure for the following reading of Berlin Childhood around 1900. This collection of vignettes， composed in a defense reaction of personal memory against the official history， comes into being through a consistent reanimation of the traumatic presents denied constituents. Small wonder it is situated in the time around 1900， which still predominantly spared the Jews of the consequences of Wilhelm IIs ethnonationalist politics. On the eve of the following deterioration， their vast majority still renounced Jewish religious and cultural peculiarity by adhering to German constitutional values， German as their mother tongue， and the Enlightenment ideal of a “man without qualities.” Their assimilation and acculturation had an almost half-century tradition. Despite the gradual rise of antisemitism from the early 1880s onwards， their alignment with Protestantism was firm （Beller 152-155） and the Zionist idea of a Jewish Palestine had little appeal to them. Since Wilhelm IIs aggressive rhetoric of purification was foremost directed against the Slavs in Eastern borderlands （Thum）， Berlin Jews were mostly protected from it before the establishment of the Weimar Republic. Next to this， at the turn of the century， Berlin became a world powers booming metropole with almost two million residents. The citys upcoming historical upheavals， devastations and divisions were still in store， at least on the prescient horizon of an eight-year child.

The boy and the adult： An inextricable entanglement

In such a “pre-historical” landscape， no constraints were put on the small boys mobile experience of reality which， so my thesis goes， is engaged to exempt the adult selfs experience from its presently imposed immobility. As an outsider， the boy activates imaginary scenarios in situations， which the adults automatically decode by using habitual knowledge. As an amateur among the initiated， the child witnesses social rituals that he cannot really understand. He is powerfully engaged where the adults are indifferent. The vignette devoted to the Victory Column contains a passage in which the child pays attention to the vassals instead of， as the adults used to do， to their sovereigns who are depicted in the frescos （Benjamin 1987： 16）. This is explained by the vassals short stature， which makes them accessible to the childs visual horizon and， in an earlier version of the manuscript， by the childs feeling that his parents were not further removed from the present power-keepers than these vassals seem to have been from the past ones. This is why the boy sympathizes with them rather than with their sovereigns （Benjamin 1980： 241）.② The alleged childs feeling that his parents were not that remote from the power-keepers of their time stands in such a stark contrast to the enforced unbridgeable gap between the narrator and the Nazi power-keepers that we can hardly overlook its character of a retroactive ascription. Only if we consider the situation of a German Jew in the 1930s， we can understand why the German power-keepers do not enjoy the boys sympathy.

At the same time， the boy keeps aloof where the adults are passionately engaged. Thus he never enters the spiral passageway encircling the column because its frescos present a series of heroes that he associates with sinners. What the adults perceive as a realm of grace， he sees as an inferno （Benjamin 1987： 17; 1980： 242）. Does this clash of perspectives not correspond with Benjamins later thesis that all triumphal processions march on the bodies of those who lie on the ground？ （Benjamin 1977： 254） While the adults climb the column because they prefer the triumphant top-down perspective， the boy remains on the ground because he adheres to his bottom-up perspective. Observed from this sobering angle of the subordinates， the people who victoriously stood on the top of the column left the impression of small figures from his exercise book with stickers， the figures that he used to stick on the ports， niches and windows of his toy constructions. Being thus， like “dollies”， immobilized in the same history that they so much desired to take into their possession， they appeared to him like “creatures of a blessed arbitrariness”， i.e.， firmly captured in their misapprehensions （Benjamin 1987： 17）. Is this “childish” witness not recognizably shaped by an adult insight into human illusions？ Is the boy not somehow modelled by that which he is at pains to oppose？

Witnessing by adoption： The introjected historical opponent

However， in Benjamins collection of autobiographical vignettes， such “witnessing by adoption” （Hartmann 9） also acquires an additional meaning. In the preface to his collection， Benjamin writes that “the images of his metropolitan childhood are maybe capable， in their interior structure， of pre-forming the latter historical experience.” He hopes that at least “one will be able to notice in them how much the one who is at stake here， was later bereft of the security that was reserved for him in his childhood” （Benjamin 1987： 9-10）. Significantly， this formulation conceals that his images foreshadow the upcoming experiences only inasmuch as they result from these experiences backshadowing. That is to say， the boy who speaks by using the narrators voice is， covertly， already a projection of the latters experience and knowledge. Well beyond that， the boys phantasy is obviously structured by the architectural and technological achievements that were available to the wealthy bourgeois families children in Berlin at the turn of the century. This is a further important aspect of memorys unconscious introjection of that which it proclaims to be opposing， i.e. historical development.

Next to the amazing metropolitan quarters with their marvelous infrastructure in which the hero loves to get lost， there are numerous Hohenzollern castles that surround Benjamins summer residence such as Sanssouci， Wildpark， Neue Palais， Charlottenhof and Babelberg. Besides， there are vistas， such as promenades with carriages and coaches， various shops， store windows， or the sounds of the city train （stations）， fire engines， emergency vehicles， fabrics， stock exchanges， trading halls， the gas lanterns， the barrel organ， or the carpet tapping in the inner yard. There are further huge parks， the latest achievements of the park architecture that are obtained with the amazing zoos， groups of sculptures on huge pedestals with reliefs， majestic monuments， villas with friezes and architraves， labyrinths， pavilions， rotundas， water installations， bridges， staircases， turrets， and kiosks. Also， there are huge bourgeois apartments with their spacious living rooms， which are provided with silver buckets， terrines， Delft vases， majolica， the bronze urns， and glass cups; and so on. Thus， far from being distinct， individual， and personal， the boys memories are embedded， through all these everyday items and facilities， in sophisticated bourgeois structures of perception and fantasy， an outstanding social imaginary and a rich archive of stories and images. That which gave rise to the childs liberating exemption from the restricted world of adults resulted， paradoxically， precisely from this worlds historical and technological development.

The back-folded historical unfolding： The mimicry of the Denkbilder

As if erasing these multiple adoptions that spontaneously mold the images of his childhood， Benjamin emphasizes the therapeutic effects of their reanimation for the predicament of his exile. In the preface， he compares their resurfacing from the suppressed zone of his memory archive with a vaccination. Although the past is socially irrevocable， he says， its personal evocation nevertheless becomes salutary if it takes the form of images that “condensate the experience of a metropolis in a child of the bourgeois class” rather than the narrative form of a biography. By invoking the operations of the Freudian unconscious， this “condensation” gives the vignettes the profile of the so-called Denkbilder. This hybrid genre of the modernist philosophical prose as practiced， for example， by Adorno， Kracauer， Bloch and Wittgenstein， undertakes a reverse processing of time into space， text into image， reflection into intuition， or word into thing. By back-folding the undergone historical unfolding， the Denkbilder engage displacing and mixing operations， cryptic images and mnemic symbols as characteristic of the repertory of the Freudian unconscious. In the same way that the latter confuses the differential logic of the conscious， the Denkbilder， which Benjamin anchors in the mimetic ability of an urban child， disfigure the discursivity of the adult world. This explains why he says that these images do not display embossed forms as characteristic of the “memories of a childhood spent in the countryside” （Benjamin 1987： 9）. The memories of an urban childhood， on the contrary， systematically disconcert such forms by disseminating indeterminacy into the habitual distinctions that characterize the world of adults. They open a room for maneuvering in the world of firm givens， uncovering the hidden zone of their potentiality.

Such peculiar resemblances find their explanation in two essays from the mid-1930s， at the time when Benjamin worked on Berlin Childhood， “The Doctrine of the Similar” and “On the Mimetic Faculty.” Therein he opens a genealogy of his mimetic conception of language， stating that the corporeal-sensuous miming of others， which characterized pre-modern behavior of humans， gradually gave way to the modern ability of perceiving conceptual similitudes. Even if the development from the immediate sensual miming of things to the linguistically mediated non-sensual resemblances implies a long-term transition， in the final outcome he interprets language as the “most perfect archive” of such resemblances， or “the highest implementation of mimetic faculty” （Benjamin 1980： 209）. Storing this genealogy in its memory archive， a linguistic sign is never just a semiotic bearer of signification but also a mimetic bearer of similitude.

In Berlin Childhood， Benjamin engages the Denkbilder to stage the suppressed sensuous mimesis in the linguistically mediated conceptual resemblances. In his view， such operations that unwind conceptual similarities into labyrinthine sensuous resemblances are not his narrators deliberate actions， but rather the compulsive reactions of his memories that were victimized by the development of history. These memories precarious situation powerfully triggers them. It is the “nostalgia of the exile，” as he says in the preface， which calls into remembrance his childhoods scattered ruins （Benjamin 1987： 9）. These “dead goods of the past，” he argues elsewhere， offer a foothold to those “who want to step out of the historical progress” （Benjamin 1980： 658）. Their sharpened attention for what in history is “untimely， painful， and missed” （343） folds back the historical progress by compelling it to “bulge from within” （359）. The thereby induced explosion entails an agglomeration of ruins without a recognizable sense or connection. Benjamin compares them with overcrowded and messy childrens or storage rooms， or magicians cabinets， which hesitate to establish an order. Their disaggregate condition preserves the memory of the “desolate confusion of execution sites” （401）. In the same way Goethe， according to Benjamin， by smashing his Elective Affinities into a heap of fragments commemorates the shadow of the death （Benjamin 1977： 116）.

The eruption of the spectral past： The disaggregated collection of vignettes

This explains why， in Berlin Childhood， the salvation of the forgotten infancy entails a loose cluster of vignettes， which Benjamin tirelessly reconfigured up until he was existentially precluded to continue. However， as his consistent reconfiguration never engendered anything other than a conglomerate of remnants， the question of the latters ultimate author—the past or the present self—had to be postponed for an unpredictable future. Remaining loyal to Novaliss dictum that the self has to be reshaped with every （catastrophic） present anew， Benjamin disaggregated the narrative of a classic autobiography into a permutable constellation of picture puzzles. He refused to state the past self， to speak about it as about an inanimate thing， by choosing instead to perform it in his present self.

In his essay on Goethes Elective Affinities， Benjamin describes how this uncanny intrusion of the spectral past self into the present selfs actions transforms his sovereign narrative statement into a performance of something “beyond” it：

In the dramatic， the mystery is that moment in which the dramatic penetrates from the domain of language that is genuine to it into a higher one that is out of its reach. It can therefore never be expressed in words， but merely and exclusively in the visual performance， it is the ‘dramatic in the strictest understanding. （Benjamin 1977： 135）

This passage suggests that the “mystical” force， which governs the fragmented performance of Berlin Childhood is beyond its reach. Because it escapes identification， it can be merely corporeally mimed but not discursively processed. In his “Theses on the Philosophy of History，” which were composed immediately after Benjamin finished his Berlin Childhood， he speaks of a “memory as it flashes up at the moment of danger” （Benjamin 1977： 253）. By “flashing up，” he seems to be indicating that memory instantaneously， as it were， takes possession of the historian， explodes into his or her present， distracting his or her attention and rearticulating the latters habitual priorities. Grabbing hold of the historian， it befalls and persecutes his or her self. This interruption from “elsewhere” blasts open the continuum of the selfs history， replacing its smooth transmission with the series of displacing encounters. It liberates the unlimited possibility of the discontinuous and plural “l(fā)iving time” from the linear and homogeneous “fate” of historical temporality.

This is how Berlin Childhoods vignettes present their own emergence. The past commands their performance through its interventions from the labyrinthine underground. To underline this， the book concludes with the vignette “The little hunchback” in which the boy stops in front of the gates of the basement hatches， behind which， as his dreams tell him， the gnomes with the pointed caps cast their underground glances on the observer. （Benjamin 1987： 78） Being accustomed to watching humans and things from below， the boy identifies with them. However， such a bottom-up gaze turns out to be disconcerting and harmful. As the popular verses on the little hunchback make clear， the one who is gazed at by him loses concentration， becomes absent-minded and clumsy， makes mistakes and thereby causes damage to his or her property. Since the little hunchbacks gaze is in its turn， thanks to its hideout， protected from being disclosed， this peril appears to be as unavoidable as death itself. A passage that Benjamin eliminated from the final version elucidates why the narrator associates the hunchback from the underground with the abyss of the death： “I imagine that this “whole life”， which people say passes before the eyes of the dying， consists of such images， which the little hunchback has of us all” （Benjamin 1980： 304） .

These images zip past at a cinematographic speed， making themselves perceivable in their fleeting sequence for just a second. Benjamin spells out in “The Doctrine of the Similar” how such a comprised sequence of “instantaneous flashes” that are “bound to a time-moment” “offers itself to the eye as fleetingly and transitorily as a constellation of stars” （Benjamin 1979： 66）. If we further consider his “Theses on the Philosophy of History，” we can infer that the images， which the little hunchback has of us all， are selected by “a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger” （Benjamin 1977： 253）. Accordingly， the little hunchback figures as this buried memorys very embodiment. The narrator of Berlin Childhood implies to have merely given expression to it， i.e. lent his pen to the little hunchback.

However， as I have tried to argue in the introductory part， the buried memory is not the ultimate agent of Benjamins Denkbilder but their retroactive mystification， mobilized by the narrators desperate need for his allegedly lost infantile freedom. His remembrance emerges from an amnesia caused by history. His images “mask other images and concerns，” （Hirsch 42） operate as “screen memories recalling a pre-historic time” （51） in the unbearable visual landscape of his historical present saturated with destruction. In other words， Benjamin carefully hides that he dispossesses his past by repeating history that has dispossessed his present.

To be sure， the narrator of Berlin Childhood does not hide this forging， but on the contrary insists on the failure of memory to turn the place of the narrators longing into the place of his or her belonging. However， precisely by passionately attaching himself to the childhood as a place of no return he mobilized a silent community of the victims of history. By stressing the experience of loss， his remembrance of his lost childhood invited its scattered individual addressees to think of themselves， along the lines of “elective affinities，” as a kind of counter-community. After such sacrificial narratives introduced a new platform of commonality， their addressees suddenly “felt themselves as contemporaries，” as “the legatees of a distinct past” and “occupants of a common time” （Fritzsche 10）. This is how Benjamins politics of remembrance， by lending its voice to the disempowered， accomplished an empowerment. By sharing his loss with the others， synchronizing with them his castrated past， and connecting his personal ordeals with larger social narratives， his performance of personal nostalgia endorsed the creation of a new messianic community.

Notes

①Here and in the following， all translations from German are mine unless otherwise notified.

② In my analysis I will consider both versions of Benjamins manuscript （1980; 1987）.

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