'UNGELOSTE GESPENSTER'? GHOSTS IN RUTH KLUGER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PROJECT

This article examines the influence of the ghost story genre on Ruth Kluger's Holocaust autobiography. The writer's engagement with ghosts can be seen as an attempt to commemorate the dead and endow her memories of the past with a coherent textual form. Her ambivalence towards them, however, needs to be viewed in the context of contemporary Holocaust debates and Kluger's examination of the ethical responsibility of the writer towards the dead. Finally, the article explores the alteration in Kluger's treatment of ghosts in weiter leben and Still Alive in the light of her ongoing work of mourning.