Victoria Aarons and Alan L. Berger show that Holocaust literary representation has continued to flourish?gaining increased momentum even as its perspective shifts, as a third generation adds its voice to the chorus of post-Holocaust writers. In negotiating the complex thematic imperatives and narrative conceits of the literature of these writers, this bold new work examines those structures, ironies, disjunctions, and tensions that produce a literature lamenting loss for a generation removed spatially and temporally from the extended trauma of the Holocaust. Aarons and Berger address evolving notions of ?postmemory?; the intergenerational transmission of trauma; inherited memory; the psychological tensions of post-Holocaust Jewish identity; tropes of memory and the personalized narrative voice; generational dislocation and anxiety; the recurrent antagonisms of assimilation and alienation; the imaginative reconstruction of the past; and the future of Holocaust memory and representation.

Emerging Trends in Third-Generation Holocaust Literature offers fresh approaches to understanding how grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators treat their traumatic legacies. The contributors to this volume present a two-fold perspective: that the past continues to live in the lives of the third generation and that artistic responses to trauma assume a variety of genres, including film, graphic novels, and literature. This generation is acculturated yet set apart from their peers by virtue of their traumatic inheritance. The chapters raise several key questions: How is it possible to negotiate the difference between what Daniel Mendelson terms proximity and distance? How can the post-post-memorial generation both be faithful to Holocaust memory and embrace a message of hope? Can this generation play a constructive educational role? And, finally, why should society care? At a time when the lessons and legacies of Auschwitz are either banalized or under assault, the authors in this volume have a message which ideally should serve to morally center those who live after the event.

This collection of new essays examines third-generation Holocaust narratives and the inter-generational transmission of trauma and memory. This collection demonstrates the ways in which memory of the Holocaust has been passed along inter-generationally from survivors to the second-generation—the children of survivors—to a contemporary generation of grandchildren of survivors—those writers who have come of literary age at a time that will mark the end of direct survivor testimony. This collection, in drawing upon a variety of approaches and perspectives, suggests the rich and fluid range of expression through which stories of the Holocaust are transmitted to and by the third generation, who have taken on the task of bearing witness to the enormity of the Holocaust and the ways in which this pronounced event has shaped the lives of the descendants of those who experienced the trauma first-hand. The essays collected—essays written by renowned scholars in Holocaust literature, philosophy, history, and religion as well as by third-generation writers—show that Holocaust literary representation has continued to flourish well into the twenty-first century, gaining increased momentum as a third generation of writers has added to the growing corpus of Holocaust literature. Here we find a literature that laments unrecoverable loss for a generation removed spatially and temporally from the extended trauma of the Holocaust. The third-generation writers, in writing against a contemporary landscape of post-apocalyptic apprehension and anxiety, capture and penetrate the growing sense of loss and the fear of the failure of memory. Their novels, short stories, and memoirs carry the Holocaust into the twenty-first century and suggest the future of Holocaust writing for extended generations.

Surveying irreverent and controversial representations of the Holocaust - from Sylvia Plath and the Sex Pistols to Quentin Tarantino and Holocaust comedy - Matthew Boswell considers how they might play an important role in shaping our understanding of the Nazi genocide and what it means to be human.

This book is the first of its kind: an exploration of the experiences of the Third Generation - the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors - who have particular relationships to the Holocaust, mediated through their interactions with their parents, grandparents, and communities. The book's editors innovatively combine scholarly work that deals with questions of trauma and its transmission across generations, with autobiographical accounts which incorporate many of the concerns raised by scholars. The contributors include historians, literary and cultural studies scholars, psychologists, and sociologists, together with autobiographical narratives from members of the Third Generation, which illuminate the scholarly research presented. *** ''At a moment when even the last of the Holocaust survivors will soon no longer be able to speak to us directly, In the Shadows of Memory introduces a diverse third generation of grandchildren, all asking what it means to be part of another 'last' cohort, who still knew and lived among the survivors - with their trauma and their resilience - in ways that the next generation will not.they grapple with the problematic questions of 'legacy', 'generational transmission', and historical responsibility, providing us with a challenging and pioneering contribution to the future of Holocaust memory.'' -- Atina Grossmann, Professor of History, Cooper Union, New York *** Librarians: ebook available [Subject: Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Sociology, History]

The Routledge International Handbook of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Descendants of Holocaust Survivors offers a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge studies from a wide range of fields dealing with new research about descendants of Holocaust survivors. Examining the aftermath of the Holocaust on the Second Generation and Third Generation, children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, it is the first volume to bring together research perspectives from history, psychology, sociology, communications, literature, film, theater, art, music, biology, and medicine. With contributions from international experts, key topics covered include survivor characteristics and experiences; the phenomenological experience of transmitted trauma legacies; the creation of Second Generation groups; the epigenetics of inherited trauma; the development of Second Generation writing; representation of Holocaust survivors in film; music and the transmission of memory; art, music, and the Holocaust; ancestral trauma and its effect on the ageing process of subsequent generations; 2G and 3G health issues and outcomes. Divided into two sections, the first deals with the humanities: history and testimony, literature, film and theater, art, and music. The second section, focusing on the social sciences and health-related sciences, contains chapters dealing with studies in the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, communication, gerontology, nursing, and medicine. This insightful handbook is a contemporary anthology for advanced students and scholars in the humanities, along with those in behavioral, social, and health-related sciences concerned with research about second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors.

In Holocaust Graphic Narratives, Victoria Aarons demonstrates the range and fluidity of this richly figured genre. Employing memory as her controlling trope, Aarons analyzes the work of the graphic novelists and illustrators, making clear how they extend the traumatic narrative of the Holocaust into the present and, in doing so, give voice to survival in the wake of unrecoverable loss. In recreating moments of traumatic rupture, dislocation, and disequilibrium, these graphic narratives contribute to the evolving field of Holocaust representation and establish a new canon of visual memory. The intergenerational dialogue established by Aarons’ reading of these narratives speaks to the on-going obligation to bear witness to the Holocaust. Examined together, these intergenerational works bridge the erosions created by time and distance. As a genre of witnessing, these graphic stories, in retracing the traumatic tracks of memory, inscribe the weight of history on generations that follow.