Analysis of Trauma and Testimony in the 1982 Film
“Sophie’s Choice”
Introduction
The American film industry has continuously taken the
step of addressing the events of the holocaust in several
of its productions. Baron estimates that “starting in
1980, over 20 films about the holocaust have been
released to theaters or aired on television annually”
(74). Hollywood, as the supreme cinematographic
industry of the modern western world, has focused
considerably on the topic of movies and profiting them.
Various productions stand out in Hollywood
approaching the themes of the holocaust from different
contexts. Consequently, these productions endeavor to
build on the imagery of this period of history, which up
to today intrigues and influence the entire western
civilization. The unquestionable dimension of that
historical period allies itself into the ever-growing
appropriation and theorization of the events of the
holocaust and their validity. Given that, this paper will
seek to analyze how Sophie’s choice, a holocaust-
related Hollywood movie, an introspection of how it
communicates with theories about the events, as well
as how it diverges from, or endorses survivors theories
that relate to testimony and trauma is vital for
consideration. Holocaust entangled a period in history
when, due to perceived beliefs of racial inferiority, the
German Nazi regime mass killed Jews totaling to
around six million. The regime also targeted races not
related to Jews. Such groups included disabled,
gypsies, Russians among others. About 200,000,
gypsies, about 200,000 physically or mentally
challenged patients from German race were also
murdered. Additionally, “…other groups were
prosecuted on political, ideological and behavioral
grounds, among them communalists, socialist,
Jehovah’s witness and homosexuals” (Dawidowicz 3).
Many of the people belonging to holocaust target
group, particularly the religious leaders and those
whose behavior did not much some of the prescribed
social norms principally died out of starvation,
mistreatment and or neglect. The 1982 movie, Sophie’s
choice by coordinator Alan J. Pakula, talks about a
former concentration camp inmate who is going
through the underlying process of overcoming the
trauma. Sophie, the main character, is cinematic
representation of the most influential source of
assessment of the horrors of world war two holocausts,
the survivor. In the life of a survivor like Sophie,
besides the issue of testimony, there is inherent
question of trauma- as defined by psychologists and
discussed by Denmark La Capra, which besides
generating consequent immeasurable damaging effects
on the lives of the victims, strongly influences their
capacity to testify (32). Consequently this paper also
has the objective of conducting an analysis of Sophie’s
testimony as compared to those of real survivors as
well as how trauma manifests in Sophie’s life. The
context of the analysis of the usage of the image of
survivor represents the mainstream cinematographic
industry: Hollywood. Hollywood is cinema is the most
popular and, therefore, the most viewed since before
the events of the war and holds considerable influences
on the audiences of the whole world. Based on Giorgio
Agamben and Premio Levies theories about testimony
and witness, the paper aims at providing explanations
about what and who the witness of the holocaust is;
and how Sophie agrees or disagrees with those
definitions. Guided by Dominick, La Capra’s terms,
and theories about trauma borrowed from
psychoanalysis, the paper also extends into
introspecting who the traumatized survivor is how
trauma affects his or her life. If Sophie is a verisimilar
representation of a camp survivor, how trauma
manifest itself in her, as well as how the notion of
trauma influences the construction of the fictional
character stand out as fundamental questions that the
paper seeks to answer. The paper also analyses other
inner questions regarding different moments of trauma
memory and events particularly to the life of the
character in order to create a solid basis to response of
the proposed questions. In addition, the theories of
trauma and those of testimony will be interrelated in an
attempt to explain how one influences the other.
Furthermore, the author analyzes how the element of
mise-en-scene such as setting lighting costumes and
behavior of the figures, as defined by Bordwell and
Thomson (169), served to construct the imaginary of
trauma in Sophie’s life. In different sequences of the
movie, these elements become powerful tools to
support the characteristics of persona and consequently
the image of the victim with devastating story tell.
There is more besides the necessary discussion about
the one considered the biggest man-caused tragedy in
the history of the western civilization. These include,
and limited to, lessons and the truths it taught and
revealed to mankind, as well as other facts that support
this research such as the importance of the cinematic
approach to history. Despite the hefty criticism for the
categorical historians who harshly accuse the role of
cinema in the constructing of the historical past,
according to Radstone, cinema has functioned as
complete source of historical and political information
to the great public (16). However, the question of
whether cinema serves as true representation of reality
remains largely eminent for consideration. Hence, there
is no warranty for its negation.
Literature Review
After the addition of the two events, holocaust and
Second World War, to the history of humankind as to
constitute two foremost human-caused events that
resulted to immense loss of human population, the
theoretical perspective of trauma and testimony
acquired ardent scholarly attention. The book
Testimony: Crisis of Witnessing in Literature,
Psychoanalysis and History by Felman and Laub digs
into the existing relationship between pedagogy and
trauma. They explore from the contexts of literally and
clinical considerations, the manner in which one can
deploy testimony process- “bearing witness to crisis or
trauma” (Felman and Laub 1) in the classroom setting
or rather “how testimony can teach us” (Felman and
Laub 1). With the help of accounts of autobiographies,
literature and videos of holocaust coupled with other
war survivors, they advocate for “pedagogical and
clinical lessons on listening to human suffering and
traumatic narratives” (Felman and Laub 10). In their
work, Feldman and Laub establish links that may be
subtle for joining harmoniously the concepts of
testifying, witnessing, memory, history, writing and
survival. In the process, they give an insight for
possibilities of existence of a way of librating victims
of trauma from traumatic experiences and at the same
time retain such memories for the purposes of future
generations to learn from them.
Scholars widely agree on the fact that prolonged and
intensive exposure to negative emotional experiences
has the capacity to leave people with permanent and
perhaps irrespirable physical and mental damage. Even
mature people have possibilities of experiencing
trauma. This notion perhaps came into consideration
after Second World War that followed the advents of
holocaust. Withuis, and Mooij reckon that “the term
trauma may be common in large parts of the world at
the start of the 21st century…however, it was usual
when world war II drew close (323). On the other
hand, Croisy claims, “where in most western countries
trauma is now automatically associated with a
psychological injury, at that time trauma referred
simply to a physical injury” (87). The change in the
meaning of the term trauma indicates how people have
emerged to alter the way they appreciate the severity of
the adversity in their health and more often how they
scrutinize both themselves and their neighbors as
victims of psychological turmoil.
Trauma impairs people’s perceptions about their
humanity. Holocaust entangled one of the worst
negative encounters that Jews exposed themselves to
with the capacity to erode their humanity. For the few
who retained their humanity, arguably their desire to
go on with their normal life squarely rested on having
an opportunity to testify what they underwent. Since
some survived, they needed an opportunity to speak,
and hence testify. According to Agamben, there are
two witnesses: “‘The Muselmann is the complete
witness.’ It implies two contradictory propositions: the
Muselmann is the non-human, the one who could never
bear witness,’ and ‘the one who cannot bear witness is
the true witness, the absolute witness’” (Agamben
150). In this context, the truest witness is the one who
cannot express himself or herself, since any expression
of testimony in words suffers from some alterations
and or modification of what actually happened.
Congruent with this argument Agamben posits that
“whoever assumes the charge of bearing witness to
their name knows that he or she must bear witness in
the name of the impossibility of bearing witness”
(Agamben 34). Arguably, language forms a dominant
way of expression and fostering human interactions.
Given that Auschwitz remnants had slim opportunities
to express themselves, perhaps going by this argument,
they could rarely call themselves complete human
beings. This perception is what rendered them
traumatized. Inferring from Lawrence Langer argument
that there exists a “rift that separates words from the
events they seek to animate” (Langer 26), all people
writing about the aftermaths of holocaust testimonies
have a particular drawback since the most significant
indicators of experiences that would end up
traumatizing the survivors goes unsaid. Therefore, as
Gordon posits, “rather than handing to its audience a
complete rendition, testimony presents itself as the
mouth of a cave, indicating the presence of darker
depths accessible only through it” (Para.12). It, thus,
intrigues whether filming the experiences of the
survivors or even poetically narrating the encounters
during the warring times satisfactorily presents actual
record of the events that took place.
The manner in which the messages in the cinema are
portrayed is much dependent on the manner in which
the cinema is organized. People will sympathize with
characters who seem so afflicted by certain moral
wrongs perhaps tantamount to what Sophie had to go
through. In the classical Hollywood cinema: film style
and mode of production to 1960, Bordwell and
Thomson argue, classical cinemas are “integral,
coherent system and a system that interrelates a certain
mode of production based on fordist principles of
industrial organization. They were a set of
interdependent stylistic norms elaborated by 1917 that
remained more or less in place until about 1960” (78).
The core notion behind classical style of films lies
predominantly on neo-formalist poetics coupled with
perceptions of cognitive psychology. However, most
scholars believe that this overlaps with padigrims set
out in the film theories of the 1970s. A chief diversion
is about “principles of narrative dominance, linear and
unobtrusive narration centering on the psychology and
agency of individual characters and continuity editing”
(Bordwell and Thomson 29). Filmmakers have a noble
role to guide the audience in interpretation of films.
This is perhaps vital since the way films are guided
helps in creating additional audience-film attachment.
Somewhat congruent with this argument Bordwell and
Thomson stress that interpretation of films can be
enhanced “through motivation and coherence of
causality, space, and time; clarity and redundancy in
guiding the viewers mental operations; formal patterns
of repetitions and variations, rhyming, balance and
symmetry; and overall compositional unity and
closure” (57). Filmmakers have scrupulous norms that
they follow in the direction and design of their movies.
With regard to films theories put forward by Bordwell
and Thomson, “the principles, which Hollywood
claims as its own rely on notions of decorum,
proportion, formal harmony, respect for tradition,
mimesis, self-effacing craftsmanship and sophisticated
control of the perceiver’s response canons, which
critics in any medium usually call classical” (3).
Bordwell and Thomson book goes to the extent of
providing an explanation of how Hollywood cinema
conducts its work. In this context, Hollywood cinema
dominance stands out to persist by virtue of its
worldwide popularity. By noting the fact that Sophie’s
choice is a production of the Hollywood, its capacity to
have global attention, as a narration that accounts for
holocaust experiences, is subtle for consideration.
Testimony, especially in historic events that the
testifier is believed not to be at a position to recount all
the events that happened, expose the witness listeners
to a myriad of questions about the authenticity of the
testimonies. In Testimony, Felman and Laub explore
experiences of showing a witness testimony in a hall
dominated by historians. The holocaust survivor
claimed to have seen the Auschwitz four chimneys
explode all over sudden. The historians rejected this
testimony since, in the historical context; there was
only one chimney in Auschwitz that exploded. Perhaps
this laid some subtle foundation about the theoretical
consideration of testimonies. According to Laub,
“since the memory of the testifying woman turned out
to be, in this way, fallible, one could not accept – nor
give credence to – her whole account of the events”
(Felman and Laub 59). It sounds absurd to reject the
witness of a survivor; having priory established beyond
no doubt that the testifier was actually a true holocaust
remnant. However, history need conform to the facts
for justification of the testimony as a true account of
such events that had impeccable traumatizing effects to
its survivors.
Some holocaust theories speak of relative truth.
Lippstadt contends with this premise and adds that
there exist two accounts in which one is terribly wrong.
He, further, asserts, “Holocaust denial is a part of this
phenomenon” (19). Levi, on the other hand, claims that
among many prisoners there recurs a common
nightmare in which “they had returned home and with
passion and relief were describing their past sufferings,
addressing themselves to a loved person, and were not
believed, indeed were not even listened to” (121).
Crucial to pin point is that, an incredible difference
exists between deconstruction and disbelief. As
Gordon puts it, “…deconstruction widens the opening
for disbelief because it emphasizes the constructedness
and malleability of history” (Para. 5). Rejection of
survivor witness on accounts of historical non-
agreements, thus, seems like the denial of the victim’s
right: having his views heard.
Methodology
In the analysis of Sophie’s choice, the focus is to
unveil the evidence of trauma in the main character:
Sophie. The methodology that is deployment entails
consideration of the manner the movie is made-mis en
scene –and then relating the direction and narratives
given as to whether they are indicative of traumatized
main character: Sophie. Consequently, perhaps it is
necessary to give a review of the movie coupled with
identification of particular circumstances in the new
life of Sophie that may give hints on the evidence of
exposing herself to traumatizing conditions prior to her
current liberated situation.
In an attempt to establish the historical account of the
holocaust as filmed by Hollywood’s movie, Sophie’s
Choice, Hartman remarks that “malleability of history
and function of testimony in the construction of history
gives rationale to the pathological fear of forgetting
evoked by most survivors” (10) are imperative for
consideration. The genuineness of the narrations as a
true representation of the holocaust horror as narrated
and depicted through Sophie will be looked at in an
endeavor to unveil as to whether it posses gaps
between the actual historical documentation of the
holocaust and events in the tales in the movie. This
way, the value of the witness who can express herself,
as well as the capacity to give a precise account of
experiences at the concentration camp will perhaps
come out. In this way, the paper will check out the
holocaust theories, trauma theories, as well as
testimony theories evident in the Sophie’s Choice.
Analysis of Sophie Choice
Sophie, the core character in Sophie’s choice, is one of
the survivors of the holocaust. The encounters and
experiences at the killings centers have obsessed her.
Despite the desperation that she went through at the
concentration camps established during the Nazi
regime, Nathan gives her some reasons to continue
living. As she recounts her experience, her composition
critically reveals the horror that she encounters. Nathan
and Sophie’s establish friendship with the narrator of
the movie: Stingo. Despite being enormously happy
with Nathan, their relationship is widely endangered by
the concentration camp experience, which act as ghosts
and risky obsessions to her future life.
As Sophie recounts the experiences at the
concentration camps, her mental state of mind, mainly
portrayed by the manner she speaks out her concerns
reveals a traumatized holocaust survivor. According to
trauma theories, even adults who have had long and
persistent exposure to extremely negative things have
the capacity to develop mental states of desperation
that afflicts their live to the extent that the majority of
them lose the sense of life (Croisy 86). Sophie is in this
condition. She cannot live without flashbacking her life
at the concentration camp. The flash backs reveals to
the audience the intricate details that helped to
construct the current Sophie’s character as she narrates
the story. Majority of her desperate secrets is revealed
which she had chosen to remain secretive especially
the gut wrenching decisions that she was commanded
to make.
It is perhaps widely acceptable among many people
that death is part of life. People cannot live without
situations losing their loved ones. In fact, there exists
no history without death. As Croisy laments, “ death is
symbolic in the sense that it is present theory in every
event, every sequence of history, every moment of
living, every trace of live and every movement we
make as individuals or groups” (105). However, on the
other hand, the human-caused death in the very eyes of
one’s relatives exposes those left behind with immense
trauma, especially upon contemplating the
circumstances that lead to the demise. In fact, as
Sophie flashbacks the horror of delivering her girl
child for death in exchange with her son exposes a
traumatized character who hardly accepts her
experience. Freud posits, “Death is a drive, through
which desires are expressed…this death appears as a
symptom of an individual’s autonomy” (Croisy 109).
Arguably, perhaps Freud argument about death could
be widely true when this death results from natural
causes. For natural death, people accept its occurrence
and are able to endure its aftermaths characterized by
agony. Nevertheless, one may wish to know the case
about human-caused death. Can Sophie possibly accept
death as real, as well as a way of marking the transition
from one state to another? Can she just dismiss the
killing of her natives by the Germans as way creating
history? Sophie, therefore, must be experiencing
trauma, as she seeks answers on the circumstances that
led to ethic cleansing of her people.
The Second World War and other events that took
place prior to this time such holocaust are encounters
that had immense traumatizing effects on people’s life
such as Sophie. Trauma arises from situations that
disrupt the state of people’s security. Throughout the
testimonies that Sophie gives to both Nathan and Stigo,
there stands a clear revelation of the extent of violation
of Sophie’s state of security. Violation of security on
her part was not only in the contexts of violation of her
rights such as movement but also on discourses of
uncertainty of the being alive the following day. This
was perhaps evidenced by the fact that no one in the
concentration camps was pretty sure whether he or she
would be next to be transported by rail to the gassing
chamber. Traumatized people perceive the world as a
dangerous to dwell. Sophie, through flashbacks of her
experience at the concentration camps, not only viewed
the world as a place that is dangerous to live in, but
also as a sphere that cannot support the interests of the
prejudiced people on the accounts of humanely
constructed inferiority of one race. Arguably, in this
context, Sophie’s state of trauma arises from two
encounters: killings of people belonging to her race
and the perception inculcated in her that she was of a
less significant race.
Referring to mis-en-scene, as curtains retreat, a
character that is full of blurred mind comes up. From
the way she talks, a memorization of her past life
exposes an immense state of disbelief, denial, anger,
hopelessness irritability and swing of moods. Facial
looks changes from glittering to one characterized with
despairs as she memorized her experiences in the
concentration camps. In this sense, her traumatic
condition seems well constructed by the moviemaker.
As Seeburger posits, when one undergoes state of
psychological trauma, “even when you are feeling
better, painful memories or emotions may trouble you
from time to time—especially in response to triggers
such as an anniversary of the event or an image, sound,
or situation that reminds you of the traumatic
experience” (Para.12). Reminiscence of life at the
concentration camps, well seems to take Sophie back
to the advents of the holocaust and could fairly see
herself inside the camp waiting for the norm:
uncertainties of being alive the following day. On the
other hand, the audiences largely have mental
construction of vivid images of life experiences at the
concentration camp. The audiences consequently get so
ingrained in sharing Sophie’s experiences that, they get
into her shoes and tend to see themselves in the
concentration camps throughout the 150 minutes
movie watch: Only after the movie is over that one can
come into terms with the Sophie’s feelings.
In the movie, Nathan happens to be a Jew who saved
Sophie from Auschwitz. Even though the violence
perpetrated by Nathan characterizes their relationship
with Sophie, especially when drunk, Sophie seems not
to care about it. What seems to obsess her is the
concentration camp experience. It is not such minor
life experiences. She does not see Nathan as the likely
cause of a problematic relationship but rather as a
source her life. As the perpetrators of inhumane acts
haunt Sophie at the concentration camp that she sees as
ghosts, they are a plague to Nathan. Sophie’s father
was one of the people who had loudest voices against
Jews. His interactions with the Nazi administrators
made Sophie’s have an opportunity to make a choice of
which child she wanted dead, as well as the one to
save. Apart from the main character, Sophie, Nathan
experiences trauma from the Auschwitz experiences
the movie presents him as a drunkard and one afflicted
by bipolar disorder that causes his random mood
swings.
Sophie stands out as a person who has adopted cute
trauma coping mechanisms since at the inception of the
movie, the audience has no hit of likelihood of Sophie
having being in the Auschwitz. This is perhaps because
the movie does not immediately start to give Sophie’s
state of unhappy and traumatizing life. The audience is
tempted to look at Sophie as a woman who is just a
sweet lover to Nathan. However as the story
progresses, elements of her unhappy life begin to
unfold before the events that brought her to her current
state are introspected. One scenario that makes the
audience share bitterly the Sophie’s experience is the
flashback of her father’s life. Through this flashback, it
is becomes ardently clear that Sophie’s father, despite
being a polish, was anti-Semite. He delivered the
speech believed to have led to holocaust: the speech on
Jews problem in Poland. He additionally agreed with
decision on the final solution that entailed
extermination of Jews. Sarcastically, the Nazi regime
also eliminated her father while Sophie ended up at the
concentration camp. It is at the camp that she was
compelled to take her daughter for execution in
exchange with her son. This difficult choice
impeccably haunts her. To make it even worse, she is
uncertain about her boy’s life in the future something
that makes her souls immensely stained with the
consequences of her state of desperation getting even
more pronounced.
The events that unfold in the life of Sophie, even after
the dawn of her liberation at the concentration camp
gives outright indication of trauma on her part. Sophie
cannot walk out from the person who liberated her
despite his uncouth behavior. Apart from being an
alcohol addict, Nathan is tragic. His inebriations
renders him paranoiac coupled with being violent.
Arguably, due to long constructed poor self-perception
rooted from her experience in the holocaust, Sophie
forgives him. A recount of the current life of Sophie’s
and the past life that she has gone through gives the
movie and intense breadth and depth. Sophie’s
encounters end up being contagious in the sense that it
is impossible for one to watch the movie and yet not
get intrigued with contradictions and the complexity,
of life that the main character experiences.
In light of the character of Sophie, it raises questions
among many trauma and testimony scholars as to
whether the imminent trauma and the testimonies of
the holocaust that the Hollywood character: Sophie,
give is depictive of what actually transpired during the
holocaust. As argued by many, a truly traumatic
incidence has the capacity to make people bewildered
and shattered. Again the witness given by Sophie’s
testimonies of her encounters in the holocaust remains
questionable as whether they are true historical
presentation of the traumas that victims of holocaust
went through: whether dead or alive. While reflecting
on Felman and Laub work, Frank Seeburger, a
professor of philosophy at University of Denver,
writes, “…testimony, bore witness–testified–at all to
the Holocaust, but merely used it–no less than the
worst Hollywood usage for profit’s sake–for exterior
purposes, and thus repeated the silencing of the
Holocaust testimony that they purported to honor”
(Para 10). One concern here is that, Hollywood being a
profits making organization has the capacity to
engineer the movie to reflect on what would
immensely influence their audience. Secondly, one
cannot represent the events of holocaust perhaps
poetically or accurately by a movie. He/she cannot
duplicate the scenes in any form of theatre acts, not
even literal language. Accessing the magnitude of
mental torture prevalent in survivors of the holocaust
may seem impossible to portray in the Sophie’s choice.
The holocaust narratives that are available including
Sophie’s choice reflect on the historical and clinical
perspective of testimony. As Seeburger reckons,
“While historical evidence to the event which
constitutes the trauma may be abundant and documents
in vast supply, the trauma–as a known event and not
simply as an overwhelming shock–has not been truly
witnessed yet, not been taken cognizance of” (Para.3).
Putting Sophie’s choice into this perspective, the
coming to birth of the narration entails a process of
developing cognizance of the trauma that afflicted the
holocaust survivors. In this dimension, consequently
the testimony of the holocaust trauma also includes the
audience who responds to the screen on which the
events that took place in the holocaust are for
inscription for the sheer first time. Nevertheless, how
acculturate is this inscription?
Screen memories not only veil the information that the
audience should remember, but, in addition, constitute
the surface for projection of the memory itself. Felman
and Laub object the screen presentation of trauma
encountered by holocaust survivors claiming that “it is
extremely concealing depictive of an example of a
woman recounting her experience of the rebellion at
Auschwitz” (60). The testimony offered by Sophie is
widely rejected since many historians argue that it is
historically inaccurate. In a prior testimony given by a
woman who claimed to have been a survivor of the
holocaust, the woman recalled four chimneys being
brown up while, in the real sense, only one
crematorium chimney was. Consequently, the woman’s
testimony ends being largely incongruent to historical
theory of testimony, which demands non-existence of
gaps between the memories and the facts. The
representation of traumatic events in films or any other
literally work, perhaps follows closely to this kind of
witness. What actually historians drive at is that a
movie like Sophie’s choice serves as just a filmic
memoirs but not a reflection of circumstances that
transpired at the concentration camps since Sophie’s
memories may not correspond to historical reality.
Limitations of Sophie’s choice
Perhaps one of the major limitations of the movie:
Sophie’s choice is the question of its credibility in
providing accurate presentation of the traumatic
exposures that the survivors of the holocaust
underwent in the concentration camps. The Agamben
proposition that the most accurate witness is the
inexpressible witness amplifies this constraint since
one can trace the trauma associated with negative
encounters such as holocaust from the event itself.
Consequently, the filmic presentation of trauma suffers
inaccuracies. In fact, the “authority of testimony
depends not on a factual truth, a conformity between
something said and a fact or between memory and
what happened, but rather on the immemorial relation
between the unsayable and the sayable, between the
outside and the inside of language” (Agamben 158).
The Hollywood movie Sophie’s choice, is arguably a
historical account of holocaust, filmed directed and
acted by people who were apart from not being
members of the targeted races by the final solution
presents perhaps mildly what transpired. This is largely
so since the truest account of the experiences is only
available in the event itself.
Felman and Laub see trauma as to encompass an event
that has no witness. However, in the Sophie’s choice,
Sophie is not only a traumatized character: she acts as
the witness narrating the experiences at the
concentration camp. Sophie hence has the ability to
know that she underwent or rather her past was dark.
With regard to trauma theories, such a condition is
largely rare since, extraordinarily few people with
psychological problems have awareness of their
situation.
Final remarks
After the toppling of the Nazi regime, the larger
Europe nations had to come to terms with the evident
immense losses left behind. Large masses of people
died and enormous resources misused in mass killing
and deportation of human beings of Jewish origin. As
Dawidowicz posits, “Millions of people had lost their
lives…more millions had to live on without their loved
ones; many were to suffer uncertainty about the fate of
their nearest and dearest for a long time” (79). People
watched in full glare as the Nazi gassed the Jewish
people to death, overworking others to death and,
further, executing them by shooting them. Worse still,
people died in groups of ten. It was thus an intense
mental torture to observe helplessly waiting for one’s
turn to get in to the gassing chamber, or the next bullet
to penetrate ones flesh.
Even after the mass killing of the non-German people
came to an end, the liberation of people was
accompanied by sadness and grief as the remnants such
as Sophie reminiscence their experiences in the
holocaust. People not only suffered from illness but
also “starved and haunted by their own experiences in
camps and in hiding, during combat and
bombardments” (Baron 61). People had to resume life
after leaving the concentration camps. However, one
question remained. This question concerns itself with
the anticipated effect on their health, as well as how the
future was to reflect their experiences. As Baron
confirms, in the modern days, “Survivors and soldiers,
widows and witnesses, and persecuted and
perpetrators, would stand out as victims who…might
not develop a chronic invalidating mental disorder”
(87). This will be possible based on a regular medical
attention accorded to them. Situations such as
avoidance of reminiscence of the killing experience
encounters, intrusive flashbacks and hyperousal
physical states would characterize Trauma in
testimonies. However, Sophie does flashback without
an indication in the movie of her endeavors to avoid
such flash backs.
Sophie’s choice revolves around the theme of war and
trauma. Many nations including the US have
developed keen interests in the trauma arising from the
aftermaths of the war: something largely borrowed
from the German experience in the holocaust.
Radstone posits, “The American medical profession
became involved in European thinking on medical and
psychological consequences of war through the
reparation payments to Nazi victims who had moved to
the US” (17). In Germany, on the other hand, people
who had predominantly fled to the United States in fear
of war conducted various medical examinations on
possibilities of trauma amongst the survivors of the
war. In this context, the knowledge of trauma likely to
afflict people following exposure to negative
experiences led to the strengthening of the “conviction
of the international organizations of resistance,
political prisoners, and prisoners of war that the war,
and especially imprisonment in concentration camps,
had caused permanent psychological damage”
(Radstone 27). Holocaust has formed a crucial point of
reference to the exemplification of the worst extent to
which the violation of human rights can occur with
preconceptions of bringing sanity in the human race.
Holocaust forms an example of a situation indicative of
the need to take care of the likelihood of genocide
occurrence, mass killing and or ethnic cleansing:
something that nations should never allow to happen
ever again. Additionally, holocaust has served to
reinforce the existing knowledge on trauma and
testimony globally. This is perhaps also widely
attributable to the global impacts made by Sophie’s
choice: a Hollywood production. As Withuis and
Mooij note, Sophie’s choice has resulted to “enormous
influence on the worldwide recognition of the
Holocaust as a unique crime is a poignant illustration
of this process” (331). Even though it is critically
acceptable that experiences encountered at the
concentration camps and the killing centers are not
possible to record in a movie within 150 minutes,
Sophie’s choice perhaps gives a glimpse of an example
of some extremity in violation of the right of life
among people based on racial prejudices. Otherwise, a
fanatic of Sophie’s choice will declare it an
informative piece of work, heavy-laden with traumatic
episodes and crucial lessons, not only for then people,
but also for generations to come.
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