Adopted Memory: The Holocaust, Postmemory, and Jewish Identity in America
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Abstract
Adopted Memory: The Holocaust, Postmemory, and Jewish Identity in America
The Holocaust is an important motif in the art and literature by American-Jewish authors of Eastern European background who are also descendants of Holocaust survivors. Their imagining of the Holocaust is at times infused with a strong nostalgic “postmemorial” longing. While these works may present this longing in a self-conscious fashion, the ways in which they are received by an American audience without a familial connection to the Holocaust can nevertheless be problematic. For highly assimilated American Jews, these works may not facilitate any kind of a genuine encounter with the horror of the Holocaust, but instead function merely to foster a stronger fascination with the imagined more “authentic” Jewish life of the sthetl. As such, it strengthens Jewish identity on the basis of nostalgia.