The post-Holocaust memoir

Abstract

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.

Transitional Women in the Transnational Era: Female Voices through Art

“…Some relevant instances of these limit-case autobiographies are found in those contemporary Anglophone Jewish women writers who have lately published a vast amount of autobiographical works in order to reconcile themselves with their ancestors’ land as well as their adoptive homes, to put together the fragmented pieces of their shattered identities, and to come to terms with what it means to be a Jewish woman in today’s world 54 . In The War After , 55 Anne Karpf mixes testimonial, autobiographical and historical elements along with interviews, letters, journalistic reports and trauma theory. Her autobiography acts as the narrative device to explore her parents’ past as Holocaust survivors, the collective history of the Second World War and the Nazi regime, the traumatic process of transgenerational transmission of trauma inherited by many subsequent generations of Holocaust survivors, like Karpf herself, as well as the personal story recounting her own journey to the family homeland (Poland).…”