La polarité spatiale dans les textes testimoniaux : Antelme, Cayrol, Levi, Rousset

Every ideological movement has its distinctive spaces that are continuously invoked and described. Its vocabulary, connections and patterns of encoding are still used, too. Thus, the Nazi ideology has set up its own spaces that continue at present to bear witness to how it worked in the past. Undoubtedly, the concentration camps remain the most significant example of such a space. The analysis of the writings of Antelme, Cayrol, Levi and Rousset shows that it is thoroughly divided so as to form a bipolar structure. This space is enclosed in the midst of two realities, two systems and two psychological plans. As in most literary works dealing with what people underwent in concentration camps, the plot of these writings oscillates between two spaces that correspond to two psychological aspects: the reality witnessed to in concentration camps with its peculiar rules on one hand and memories and dreams appealing to the previous stage of life of prisoners, on the other. Both spaces evoked by the alternation of "here" and "there" are interwoven. Confronting one to the other is deemed hopeless – it generates only further suffering due to an unreal prospect of being freed.