Narrator Reliability

Reliability is an important quality in a person, no matter their gender or their age.  In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Villette, the main character Lucy is considered an unreliable narrator because she does not always tell the truth, and she withholds information from the reader.  Withholding information and reliability does not just apply to narrators of stories; it also applies to real-life situations.  An example of this is the upcoming trial of a former Auschwitz camp guard in Germany.  Oskar Gröning, now ninety-three years old, has been charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Holocaust victims.  During World War II, Gröning was referred to as ‘the accountant of Auschwitz,’ as he was assigned to confiscate the luggage and money of prisoners arriving at Auschwitz concentration camp, in his capacity as an SS guard.  On Monday, April 20, around sixty joint plaintiffs that were due to give evidence expressed a wish that Gröning would use the trial to admit to having been more than just a passive witness to the horrors of the concentration camp.  Christophe Heubner, a German writer who will follow the trial, was quoted stating, “The open wounds caused by the non-existent justice system is an enduring scandal that has lasted since Auschwitz until today and caused huge indignation among the survivors.  The fact that most perpetrators died without seeing the inside of a courtroom, with most of them continuing to live in the middle of society without being confronted with their guilt, is not something we can change.  But it’s very important that these survivors can testify as witnesses now.”

As a history major, I see read flags all over this situation.  Historians are taught to be wary of sources and even people’s testimonies that have been taken down many years after an event took place.  That is why this is alarming because Gröning was twenty years old at the time he worked at Auschwitz, and is now being put on trial seventy-three years after the fact.  How does the court know that the testimonies given by Gröning and the witnesses are reliable?  Seventy years is a large gap in time, where memories could fade or become skewed due to new information released on the issue.  This is very similar to reading Villette and questioning Lucy’s reliability as a narrator.  The information Lucy provides must be evaluated for truth, rather than being taken at face value.  The same can be said for the witnesses of this trial because their testimonies may not be reliable seventy years after their time at Auschwitz.

Connolly, Kate. “Former Auschwitz Death Camp Guard to Go On Trial in Germany.” The Guardian. 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.