Abstract
The tension between Muttersprache (mother tongue) and Mördersprache (murderers’ language) within the German language shapes Paul Celan's poetry. How, then, is it possible to cheat language amid the unresolved tension of this realm, in which affective memory cannot be restored without the gestation of death? This is a question addressed in the article, which also seeks to discern how the negativity of barbarism reduces language and any possibility of interchange between languages to a babbling that delineates language in the direction of its scars and irreparable pains, as the linguistic heritage originated in the mother’s womb also sustain the tradition in which barbarism sprouts.
Keywords:
mother tongue; murderers' language; Auschwitz; Paul Celan