[The second Holocaust: life is threatening] (original) (raw)
Related papers
Enjoying' Traumatically: The Holocaust As'The Second Generation'S' Other
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1999
This paper sets out to explore a question opened up by the growing number of lifewritings and oral testimony currently being produced by members of`the second generation'. That is, how can the descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors free themselves from 'the repetition of suffering', which, in the language of Lacanian psychoanalysis, could be described as the attachment to an unbearable form of enjoyment (jouissance) of the Shoah? The paper pursues a Lacanian reading of the writing of one such descendant, the expatriate Australian writer, Lily Brett. It considers whether the themes of anxiety, death, eating, bodies and the fantasy of love between mothers and daughters that structure her stories constitute a form of testimony with, as the Lacanian Israeli psychoanalyst Rivka Warshawsky puts it, 'the power of resolving the repetition compulsion'.
Postmemory of the Holocaust in modern research
Prace Literaturoznawcze
This paper describes the Holocaust in modern research. The principal works in the contextof heritage trauma were penned by Barbara Engelking (Holocaust and Memory: The Experience of the Holocaust and Its Consequences: An Investigation Based on Personal Narratives) and Marianne Hirsh (Żałoba i postpamięć [Mourning and Postmemory]). Their analyses show how different were the attitudes taken by people who survived the Holocaust. I have completed my work with other research, focusing on the literature discussing psychological and political aspects. The aim was to show the diversity of the effects produced by the Holocaust and its unfading resonance in various areas of life.
This paper analyzes the film-series “Holocaust” (1978, by Gerald Green e Marvin Chomsky) by discussing the necessity and the impossibility of representing the Shoah. It presents a reading of the American mini-series “Holocaust” by the German Philosopher Günther Anders and also explores different perspectives on it by other commentators. Unlike many intellectuals, Anders’ book, “After Holocaust”, offers a positive assessment of the mini-series “Holocaust” by considering not only its aesthetic value but its power in awakening the conscience of the German/Austrian people, who have been half-asleep when confronted with their own guilt.
The post-Holocaust memoir 20 years after 50 years later pre-print version.pdf
The War After (Karpf, 1996), a family memoir about the psycho-social effects of the Holocaust on the children of survivors, attracted considerable attention when first published. 20 years later, Karpf argues, it can be read as an example of post-postmemory. Hirsch (2012) defined postmemory as those memories of the Holocaust that the 'second generation' had of events that shaped their lives but took place before they were born. Post-postmemory, Karpf suggests, is the process whereby such narratives are themselves modified by subsequent events and re-readings brought about by three kinds of time - personal, historical and discursive. Although inevitable, such re-readings run the risk of encouraging Holocaust revisionism and denial. Nevertheless, Karpf claims, they are essential to maintain the post-memoir as a living text. Marianne HIRSCH, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust, New York, Columbia University Press, 2012 Anne KARPF, The War After: Living With the Holocaust. London, Heinemann, 1996.
The Iconography of Suffering: Dominant Themes in Holocaust Memory and Postmemory
This paper argues that Holocaust survivor testimony, although harrowing and for many people ‘on the outside’ unpalatable, particularly in the earliest years of publication, has largely formed the basis of cultural knowledge of the Holocaust. Following one of the themes of this conference, I will discuss post-memory of the Holocaust as grounded in narratives of trauma, promulgated by first generation Holocaust memory and testimony. Using examples of early and well-established testimonies and literature, and in particular, the works of Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, the paper will explore how the language and narratives of trauma, and the status given to figures such as Elie Wiesel, created a motif for Holocaust memory. The starting point for this paper is the literature and testimony of the survivors, moving into a discussion of the Holocaust in the broader cultural field, including in film, art and museums. The paper will respond to questions of the aestheticizing of suffering and trauma, the subsuming of narratives of defiance and resilience, and the domination of a victim identity, which are evident within, or counteracted by these various avenues of cultural memory. The underlying argument of this paper is that although there is arguably a move towards alternative Holocaust narratives, the imagery of suffering and trauma remains a dominant theme of Holocaust post-memory.
Post-Holocaust life: A study of 'Maus'
'Maus' is one of the earliest and most prominent examples of how graphic novels are making their place in literature. It is a frame-narrative story in the form of a graphic novel which intertwines three storylines into one. Art Spiegelman narrates an experience of him writing the book after interviewing his father Vladek about his experiences of the Holocaust. This paper aims to study the lives and characters of both the father and son, who are both incidentally 'survivors', in a deeper sense of the term. I will be attempting to read the text keeping the experiences of the Holocaust as a background to how it shaped Vladek's personality, both before and after the war. There are instances of slippage throughout the text where we perceive the difference between Vladek and Artie, i.e., one who has lived through the horrific past and one who is listening to/reading the story. I would try to look at this from the lens of Adorno's essay 'Commitment', and if writing about the Holocaust is ethical and moral at all. A section of this essay will also focus on the question of the graphic novel format being more approachable to the readers than usual texts by comparing the reception of 'Maus' with other Holocaust literary texts.