Perec gave us “W or The Memory of Childhood” to share his illustrative vision of the Holocaust, both in a personal and figurative aspect. Throughout the book, we see the contrast of these two parallel stories, one being autobiographical and the other (seemingly) being on a  fictional (based on real events) premise. His autobiography emerges from his past which he based off of photographs as a kid and relatives testaments of this time. He often refers to not  remembering what it was like for him in the time of Nazi Germany because he was a young boy. Perec’s response to this trauma led him to block out this horrific time from his brain. The other is the contrasting fictional utopia of the island W, where luck is the only thing keeping you alive. He describes an intense torturous land that I assumed to resemble Nazi Germany concentration camps where the Olympics reside and the horrendous government ideals control its people. “Winners” are graced with food and basic necessities while “losers” progressed getting weaker and weaker as they were malnourished. This winner/loser act shows how unfair and aimless the killings of Nazi Germany were on people. Though, this is a link I assumed, we cannot know if this is fully what he wanted to be observed through the island of W.

I found the alternating stories to be a very interesting way of displaying the reality of his own personal experience and the reality of Nazi Germany in a birds eye persepective almost. Since W reflected more on the broad tragedies of WW2, the story of W is more of a general perspective on the entirety of Nazi Germany. I think he did this to contribute the trials and tribulations that others faced during this horrific time and bring their stories to the surface. This showed how many different people faced different traumas during the same time period. His autobiography connected into his own personal story, much of what he cannot remember as he was a child. This also may have been a coping strategy for him, as a child his brain actively tried to block out this horrific time in his life. Seeing this general perspective through the island W, and his own personal experience made readers adjust from personal to impersonal analysis. 

Personally, I haven’t studied Nazi Germany much so I don’t know much besides the general tragedies during this horrifying time. But I really appreciated the way Perec set up this book because it showed how everyone had such different battles in time of WW2, yet they all share the commonality of being brutal and traumatizing. So I pose this question to my classmates,  do you think forgetting memories is a valid way of progressing past trauma? Or do you think addressing the situation head on is more effective? Do we get to choose to forget or address?