The novels of the Estonian writer Ene Mihkelson and the German author Christa Wolf have a hidden philosophical potential: the poetics of remembering. By comparing the novels Patterns of Childhood and City of Angels or The Overcoat of Dr. Freud by Christa Wolf and The Sleep of Ahasuerus and Plague Grave by Ene Mihkelson they are analysed for their structures and philosophies of the study of memory poetics and are contrasted with Avisha Margalit and Giorgio Agamben's concept of moral testimony and Walter Benjamin's literary technique for conveying his ideas.