Block 21 and the pensabilità of the representation of Auschwitz

Building on the assumption that the Memorial in onore degli italiani caduti nei campi di sterminio nazisti (situated in Auschwitz I, Block 21) is an expression of the meta-reflexive inclination that strengthened the XX century, in other words of the capacity of that century to think itself as a subject, this article aims to highlight and illustrate the philosophical meaning evoked by the Memorial. This philosophical meaning, which has a symbolic value, on one hand leads us to investigate, from the perspective of the philosophy of history, an organic and historically embodied conception of deportation. On the other hand, this philosophical meaning highlights, from the perspective of the aesthetics of memory, a new framework of the question of the representability of Auschwitz wich problematizes the essence itself of the concept of representation and identifies its conditions of possibility in a ineliminable openness towards an ideal dimension. Central to this article is the category of thinkability viewed as a symbolic ground of both the act of testifying and its artistic expression.