Trauma: The Embodiment of Holocaust’s Refugee’s Identity Chaos in Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl

Abstract

The Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi forces resulted in a vast number of causalities and psychological trauma that has been transmitted across generations. From this historical event, Lacapra's theory emerges as a critical framework addressing the absence of history in adequately representing and preserving the enduring impact of trauma. Although numerous studies have employed Lacapra's theoretical perspective, research focusing specifically on the concepts of acting-out and working-through remains relatively limited. In terms of data collection and analysis, this study employs a qualitative approach using descriptive analysis. The findings indicate that Anne Frank experiences both loss and absence simultaneously as a result of the treatment imposed by Nazi forces in Germany and the Netherlands prior to her family's capture. Furthermore, Anne Frank expresses her emotional and psychological condition through her diary, which serves as a response to trauma, reflecting her ongoing effort to engage in working-through until the final moments of her life. The analysis of Anne Frank as a character in The Diary of a Young Girl demonstrates that her experience in hiding represents two domains of trauma: loss, referring to the historical loss of freedom, security, life, and social relationships; and absence, referring to a form of existential void and irretrievable loss of meaning. The primary implication of this study is that Frank's narrative functions not only as a record of a Holocaust victim, but also as a representation of a complex psychological process in which an individual attempts to negotiate and manage trauma under conditions of extreme oppression.