And You Shall Tell Your Children: Examining “Second Generation” Holocaust Testimony

• In Event: “Beyond Individual Recall”: Holocaust Testimonies in the Age of Postmemory

Abstract

Over the past thirty years, a growing body of literature has documented the lasting effects of the Holocaust on the children and grandchildren of survivors. Various studies have pointed to the intergenerational transmission of both trauma and resilience in the families of survivors, while indicating the central impact of the Holocaust in identity development among the next generations. The Holocaust has become a cornerstone of contemporary Jewish practice in the 21st century in the broader Jewish community, even for those with no direct relation to Holocaust survivors. With the passing of the survivor generation, amidst rising anxiety about how to continue to tell the stories of survivors, self-identified “second and third generation” descendants of survivors have created organizations around the world determined to keep the stories of their loved ones alive. And yet, many of these groups have struggled to tell the stories of their parents and grandparents. The purpose of the “In Our Own Words Oral History Project” at the University of Hartford is to collect and record the testimonies of the children and grandchildren of survivors in Greater Hartford. Thus far, approximately 25 initial interviews with Hartford-area children and grandchildren of survivors have been conducted. Topics examined in the interviews have included the child’s understanding of parents’ experiences; when the child first learned about the parents’ experiences; the impact of intergenerational transmission of trauma; the motivation of the child to remember and re-tell their parent’s experience; the effects of resilience on identity formation; and more. Subsequent interviews with children and grandchildren of survivors in Israel and Australia are also planned. Initial findings have demonstrated significant differences within and between families as to the impact of the Holocaust on identity formation. While some children have made telling and retelling the stories of parents and grandparents a focal point of family lore, creating elaborate familial ceremonies to guarantee memorialization, other children within the same family have done exactly the opposite, creating an emotional distance from the subject matter. The paper will examine some of the reasons for this growing impulse to re-tell and will also evaluate the discrepancies between families in sharing the initial findings from the interview project.

author

• Avinoam Patt, University of Hartford