'Ungelöste Gespenster'? Ghosts in Ruth Klüger's Autobiographical Project

This article examines the influence of the ghost story genre on Ruth Klüger'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 Klüger's examination of the ethical responsibility of the writer towards the dead. Finally, the article explores the alteration in Klüger's treatment of ghosts in weiter leben and Still Alive in the light of her ongoing work of mourning