"ON BEING A VICARIOUS WITNESS: AKTION T4 AND CONTESTING THE ERASURE OF DISABILITY HISTORY": VIDEO, TRANSCRIPT, AND RESOURCE GUIDE

On October 18, 2021, Kenny Fries, Perel, and Quintan Ana Wikswo, three queer Jewish disabled writers and artists each discussed their work on Aktion T4, a prime crucible of disability history. The panel was moderated by Julia Watts Belser and hosted by the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. The following questions were addressed during the discussion: How do these writers and artists avoid a sentimental or aesthetic depiction? In their work, and as they work, how do they avoid re-inscribing trauma? Because Aktion T4 has no survivors, how do writers and artists become “vicarious witnesses,” which memory studies scholar Susanne C. Knittel describes as not “an act of speaking for and thus appropriating the memory and story of someone else but rather an attempt to bridge the silence through narrative means”? Video here. Transcript here. Resource guide here.