Silence and acts of memory : a postwar discourse on literature, history, Anna Seghers, and women in the Third Reich / Birgit Maier-Katkin.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-205) and index.

Anna Seghers: a woman's voice in literature and history -- Literature, history and mnemonic voids -- History, literature and past actuality -- Silence and mnemonic voids -- An attempt to pierce silence -- Text and reader: a matter of social discourse -- Silence at the heart of postwar discourse -- The emergence of silence -- The perseverance of silence -- The past as silence: a generational discourse -- History, literature, and the daily lives of ordinary people -- Piercing the silence of everyday life -- Ceremony and mnemonic construction -- Piercing the silence: women and daily life -- Seghers' literature: mnemonic flashes of daily life -- Confronting the silence -- Women in Nazi society -- Mothers in Hitler's Germany -- Women as Nazi sympathizers -- Reflections on daily life and the banality of evil.