Programa del congreso

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Resumen/Abstract: Maureen Tobin Stanley investigates Neus Català’s trajectory into cultural memory, particularly the double movement in cultural memory dynamics (Erll and Rigney)-- remediation and premediation—that ultimately leads to “afterlife” (Erll). Remediation refers to the repeated representation of memorable events in varied media (cinema, fiction, historiography…): “a canon of … medial constructions” (Erll). Premediation is the phenomenon that existing media steer the course for future representations. Neus Català, as an individual, as an anti-fascist resistant and activist, told her tale and that of others, vociferously and in writing. Her compilation of her testimony and that of others makes her and fellow testimoniadoras what Ricard Vinyes terms “historiadoras de sí mismas.” The transition from communicative memory to the written medium transforms the Spanish female Nazi camp experience into a memory site. As an example of counter-memory, her historia and their historias are in dialog with official Francoist imposed Historia. The testimonial anthology De la resitencia y la deportación, and the remediations, the biographical novel by Carme Martí, Cenizas en el cielo, Català’s protagonism or involvment in documentaries such as Susana Koska’s Mujeres en pie de guerra and Montse Armengou and Ricard Belis’ Ravensbruck, inferno de dones, and a growing body of academic scholarship on her bespeak to her solid presence in cultural memory. Thus giving the multi-layered memory site not just a new life, but the lasting memorialistic presence that Astrid Erll terms an “afterlife.” Tobin Stanley studies the memory of this Nazi camp survivor--targeted for erasure from cultural memory—remediated and premediated in a memorialistic corpus that participates in the vindicatory justice-centered counter-memory (Foucault) and un-forgetting (Rigney).

Mediante una agenda política femenina, feminista y antifascista, Cenizas en el cielo, una biografía novelada de Neus Catalá escrita en el año 2012 por Carme Martí, reivindica la memoria histórica de miles de mujeres republicanas cuyos cuerpos sufrieron las vejaciones de los campos de concentración nazis. La novela narra la vida de Neus Catalá, quien sufrió el exilio a Francia y la deportación a los campos de exterminio y luchó de forma activa durante toda su vida contra el fascismo internacional. Este texto, junto a los testimonios de algunas españolas supervivientes del Holocausto que recopiló la misma Neus bajo el título De la resistencia y la deportación: 150 testimonios de mujeres españolas, son fundamentales para el estudio de la memoria histórica femenina ya que, según se afirma en Cenizas en el cielo, las deportadas españolas son “las olvidadas de los olvidados” (313). Este estudio analizará la forma en la que ambos libros representan un pasaje por la memoria, un homenaje a la resistencia femenina, un relato de la supervivencia, una ruptura del silencio y un deseo de que la experiencia traumática de las mujeres españolas en los campos de concentración nunca sea olvidada. Ambos textos enfatizan la necesidad de mantener viva la memoria y de expresar lo inexpresable sobre los campos de concentración. A su vez, denuncian los atentados contra los derechos humanos y el anonimato en el que cayeron miles de mujeres que fueron perseguidas, encarceladas o asesinadas tanto por la dictadura franquista como por la Alemania Nazi. Estas narraciones se proponen luchar contra la desmemoria al reconstruir la lucha de aquellas mujeres que, a pesar de su resistencia activa contra los regímenes dictatoriales, fueron relegadas a los márgenes de la sociedad y eliminadas de las páginas oficiales de la Historia.

Català’s biography fits squarely within the recovery of memory movement in contemporary Spain, as it portrays a left-wing woman and demonstrates the consequences of fascism on individuals. It is crucial that these stories be known to non-Spanish speaking audiences. The success of fictional and non-fictional sub-titled television series on Netflix and the translation into English of Spanish graphic novels point to a current U.S. interest in Spanish history. Neus Català’s real-life heroism is a necessary complement to the both fictional heroism of the strong female characters and to the feats of the male historic heroes depicted in the television series.

Studies of Spaniards in German concentration camps has long been a field of interest within Peninsular Studies, however only the most recent works are available in English (e.g., Alejandro Baer, Cate Arries, Antonio López Quiñones, David Pike, Paul Preston.) Recent scholarship not only examines Spaniards’ experiences in WWII, but also frames the Spanish Civil War as a type of Holocaust, signaling a growing presence of the Spanish Civil War in the global cultural imaginary. Over the course of five decades, the public’s attitude toward the Holocaust itself evolved from a lack of interest to an area of mainstream cultural and academic inquiry, as Elie Weisel points out in his 2006 preface to the reprint of Night (xiv). While inarguably different in scope and scale, the Spanish Civil War and the role of Spanish Resisters in WWII are moments of history that continue to merit greater visibility beyond Spain’s borders. Translations are one obvious way to make cross-cultural studies possible.

This paper examines theories of memory and translation with regard to Neus Català as well as present choices made throughout the translation process by connecting these choices to the theories of translation posited by Walter Benjamin, Bella Brodzki, and Edith Grossman.