Judeo-Spanish expressions in life stories of Greek survivors of the Shoah

Abstract

What is the role of Judeo-Spanish expressions in the life stories written by Ladino-speaking Holocaust survivors? To what extent do the Judeo-Spanish language and expressions determine the center of gravity of the stories? And why do the tellers of the stories choose to incorporate Judeo-Spanish expressions into their Hebrew-written life stories? These are some of the central questions addressed in the present paper, which suggests that the purpose of incorporating Judeo-Spanish to these stories is to render them more powerful and to make the Judeo-Spanish experience more accessible to those who are not part of it. It is interesting to note that it is the very fact that Judeo-Spanish was a minority language in the extermination camps which makes the life stories of its speakers who survived particularly forceful. The Judeo-Spanish language preserved in their memory, which became an “informal language” in the camps, acquires a new vitality in their life stories. We center our discussion on the autobiographies of Greek survivors and on testimonies gathered in interviews with those survivors. We examine the incorporation of Judeo-Spanish expressions to their life stories and the references to the status of the Judeo-Spanish language during the Holocaust.