The Power and Strength in Women: Dramen der Verlorenheit: Mutter-Tochter-Beziehungen in der Shoah: Zur Rezeption und zur narrativen Gestalt traumatischer Erfahrungen in Videozeugnissen. (Dramas of Forsakenness: Mother-Daughter Relationships during the Holocaust: The Reception and Narrative Gestalt of Traumatic Experiences in Video Testimonies). By Joanna Bodenstab. Göttingen:  Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2015,  274 pp.; Basel:  Schwabe Verlag, 2012,  287 pp., €29.99.

There is an inscription on the temple of Isis in Sais, Egypt, that reads: “I am all that has been, that is, and that shall be; no mortal has yet raised my veil.” Throughout history, that veil has been an invitation for philosophers, historians, and poets to find answers and delve further into the truth. The eighteenth-century German poet Friedrich Schiller (1795) ends his poem about a young man who in his search for wisdom tries to lift the veil:

We analysts are aware of our struggle with what we see and learn in one particular area: aggression—not only manifestations of aggression inside the consulting room but also the effects of aggression directed from without at us, our patients, and our work. This book by the late Johanna Bodenstab is an attempt to help us understand the various mechanisms we