Sopravvivere senza ritorno: il nostos dai Lager

ABSTRACT. The paper deals with the question of return from a twofold perspective: the impossibility of a return of the Polish nation to the pre-World War II socio-political situation and that of a return to life for those who came out of the German death camps. The first part of the article deals with the issue of the disappearance of pre-war Poland in the perception of writers such as Miron Białoszewski, Tadeusz Drewnowski, Tadeusz Konwicki, Czesław Miłosz. In the second, the phenomenon of the “survival without a nostos” of those who survived the Lagers is analysed from a broad comparative perspective by studying the works of Jean Améry, Robert Antelme, Tadeusz Borowski, Viktor E. Frankl, Vasilij Grossman, Imre Kertèsz, Primo Levi, Liana Millu, Krystyna Żywulska.