The child is never just a child. While the image, voice and gaze of the victimized child is a universal symbol of a failing world, it can be an equally potent aesthetic screen for historical obfuscation. Analysing selected works by Dieter Forte, Günter Grass, Gisela Elsner, Hans-Ulrich Treichel and Rachel Seiffert, Writing the Child considers the evolution of German cultural memory concerning wartime trauma and victimhood. In these works, the aesthetically conceived child comes into view as a memory icon, animated as much by collective fantasies as shaped by specific historical...