Introduction: Of Ghosts, the Flesh of the Present, and the Singing Child in the Dark

I first introduce the quite broad discourse on music’s confronting and appeasing functions in the mediation and representation of traumatic and horrifying events. The discourse about these functions of music I contextualize with even broader questions about the process of memory and commemoration of the Shoah, to point out the relevance (and potential) of the subject of this book. I analyze the use of music in feature films about the Shoah, asking how it affects the process of remembering and commemorating the most traumatic and defining event of Western History in the twentieth century. The analysis of “the sound of Nazi violence,” as well as the escape from and resistance against it, not only reveals a lot about the construction of the filmic characters’ emotive states, but also tells us more about our own relationship to the past. In this chapter I give a brief overview of the book by introducing my selection of films for detail analysis and summing up each of the chapters.