Scraps of Memory: The Literature of Third-Generation Holocaust Survivors in Germany

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Ever since the historical caesura of the Holocaust’s systematic genocide, Jewish identities in Germany have been characterized by experiences of displacement. Many Jews living in Germany, especially members of the third generation of Holocaust survivors, struggle to identify with their homeland and mother tongue and emigrate to distance themselves from the country’s history. Others deliberately attempt to come to terms with their ancestors’ past and German memory culture to redefine post-1945 Jewish identities in Germany for the present. These members of the third generation strive to break their grandparents’ silences, bear witness belatedly, complete fragmented narratives, and give survivors back their voices.
This panel examines the third generation’s literary engagement with Holocaust memory and memory culture in Germany from a multidisciplinary perspective. Three papers, covering a wide range of memory spaces, genres, and genders, examine the intergenerationality of Holocaust trauma and testimony, the discursivization of Jews in Germany, and the third generation’s diverse literary output as a linguistic act of personal and cultural survival.

​​The panel begins with Dani Kranz’ paper “Conceptualizing Memory Scapes of German Language Third-Generation Authors,” which, through a discussion of literary texts of different genres and perspectives, presents the diverse memory tropes of third-generation authors in a memory scape. Next, Adi Nester’s contribution “‘Inglorious Jews’: The Language of Jewish Revenge, Integration Theater, and GEGENWARTSBEWÄLTIGUNG in Max Czollek’s Work” examines Max Czollek’s theoretical and lyrical critique of German efforts to come to terms with the past and shows how his work sabotages German hegemonic culture’s “integration theater.” Finally, Leonie Ettinger’s presentation, “After Postmemory: Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s MUTTERSPRACHE MAMELOSCHN and the Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors in Germany,” proposes a linguistic hybrid approach that combines reflection on her own experiences as a member of the third generation with literary analysis of Salzmann’s multi-generational play. The presentation shows that due to traumatic memory’s fragmentariness, the third generation’s encounters with the past require fictionality.

Sub Unit

• Holocaust Studies

Chair

• Miranda Crowdus, Concordia University

Individual Presentations

• “Inglorious Jews”: The Language of Jewish Revenge, Integration Theater, and GEGENWARTSBEWÄLTIGUNG in Max Czollek’s Work - Adi Nester, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

• After Postmemory: Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s MUTTERSPRACHE MAMELOSCHN and the Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors in Germany - Leonie Ettinger

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 04