The Auschwitz’s Narrative and Ethics in Postmemory Generation: László Nemes' film  and Ethical Excess

This paper aims to examine the task of imagining Auschwitz presented by the postmemory generation and its ethical implications through László Nemes' film “Son of Saul.” Auschwitz is a death factory and a hole in oblivion that produced victims who could not even leave their remains. Art starts from these holes and has the task of rescuing the victims' anonymity. The victim's anonymity carries the risk of aesthetic fiction that fixes fatal simplification and stereotypes. Nevertheless, aesthetic fiction opens up the possibility of thinking beyond testimony or records by embracing non-reproducible and untold things. “Son of Saul” directed by László Nemes is about a Sonderkommando who claims that the boy who died in the gas chamber facility is his son and wants to hold a funeral according to authentic Jewish style. This paper focuses on the meaning of resistance of burial rituals and the responsibility of being a father in Saul's actions. And through this, the postmemory generation's gaze on Auschwitz asks for ethical excess beyond the family community and ethnicity, and they tries to embrace Cain, who killed his brother, like Sonderkommando.