«Those who lend assistance often need the assistee with the same urgency». Trauma, care and self-representation in «Moeder & Grunberg» and «Moedervlekken»

Abstract

Moedervlekken (2016) and the documentary Moeder & Grunberg (2015) are two interrelated works rife with autobiographical elements, where Arnon Grunberg reflects on his mother’s experience in Nazi concentration camps, on his childhood marked by Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust – the trauma at the heart of his oeuvre – and on the alienating process of aging.