Autobiographical Writing, Autobiographical Narration: Memories of a 'Child of the Occupation' in the Mirror of Two Genres

The article focuses on two different versions of the childhood and life history of a female "child of a Russian" who grew up in the Soviet occupation zone and the later German Democratic Republic (GDR). Besides a biographical-narrative interview, there is also a published text on the author's childhood memories. The article concentrates on the childhood of the author/interviewee, since the published version does not provide any information on her later life, and picks out two so-called "key scenes" that appear in both the published version and the interview, comparing the different versions with each other and examining them for ruptures, inconsistencies and changes. For the purpose of better understanding the analysis of these scenes, a third scene is added, which, however, only comes up in the interview. The analysis pursues the question of whether different presentations of a scene have something to do with the methodological particularities of an oral autobiographical narration as opposed to a written one, and what kind of knowledge is gained from contrasting two different self- testimonies.