Struggling with the past and the experience of war trauma in Henryk Truskowski’s recollections

Abstract

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the experience of suffering and trauma can be presented in biographical narratives. This topic, although increasingly present in literature and the media, often remains discussed in a cursory manner: in order to comprehend trauma and its consequences, one needs to consider the sum of an individual’s experience, that is, their entire life. This article examines such a comprehensive biographical account of Henryk Truskowski, recorded on 23 May 2017 in Olsztyn by Anna Maciąg as part of the project Remembering the trauma of the Second War in the spoken accounts of the inhabitants of Warmia and Mazury.