The Taste of Freedom, the Smell of Captivity: Sensory Narratives of the Hungarian Camp of Bergen–Belsen

• Published in: Journal of contemporary history 2023-07, Vol.58 (3), p.449-467
• Main Author: Huhák, Heléna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accounts; Concentration camps; Emotions; Everyday life; Holocaust; Impressions; Narratives; Prisoners; Social life & customs; Survivor
• ISSN: 0022-0094; 1461-7250
• DOI: 10.1177/00220094231178706

This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of sensory impressions in narratives of the everyday lives of prisoners in a concentration camp. I examine the narrative strategies in a diary and an early postwar memoir in the so-called Hungarian camp of Bergen–Belsen. I focus on how the survivors who produced these texts included references to sensory impressions in their accounts. By paying attention to mention in the survivors’ narratives of the more neglected elements of human experience (such as hearing, taste, smell and touch), I consider the ways in which non-visual sensory impressions were used in the narratives to convey experiences, observations, and feelings. I argue that in their depictions of everyday life in the camp, these testimonies used references to changes in their sensory impressions to represent processes and subtle changes in the social lives of the prisoners, which created a discursive space for the authors to express their emotions. This paper also attempts to introduce the term ‘sensory narratives’ into Holocaust studies in an effort to move beyond interpretations of historical narratives as representations of bodies and to engage with them as accounts that were created by bodies, including the senses.