This paper analyzes the way in which language built the ethnical and the artistic identity before, during and after the experience of the concentration camp, in The Story of a Life, Aharon Appelfeld's memories. The languages of his childhood - German (his mother tongue), Yiddish (his grandparents' language), the Ukrainian and the Romanian language (the official languages of the milieu) are the stable roots in the search of a new undertaken identity by the Hebrew language, learnt in a cultural context.
linguistic identity-cultural identity; memory