Translated Memories

Bettina Hofmann teaches American studies at the University of Wuppertal. She recently co-edited the volumes Life Writing: Lives in Focus of PraxisEnglish and Performing Ethnicity, Performing Gender: Transcultural Perspectives.Ursula Reuter is director of Germania Judaica, Köln Library on the History of German Jewry.

Translated Memories grew out of a conference held in Essen, Germany, in July 2015. As editors Hofmann (Univ. of Wuppertal, Germany) and Reuter (Germania Judaica, Cologne Library on the History of German Jewry) state in the introduction, their “interest is in specific cases of Holocaust memory as expressed in different languages and media by members of the second and third generations of Holocaust survivors." Another crucial point of interest for them "is the mode of translation ... [understood] both literally and metaphorically.” The resulting 22 essays are groundbreaking in their conceptual diversity, many of them insightful and well researched and enriched by, and sometimes paired with, compelling personal stories by the children and grandchildren of survivors. The existing literature on Holocaust memory is already vast, yet these essays put forth new and invaluable ideas that seek to answer how "later-born authors approach memories transmitted by surviving family members.” Of particular note are the five essays in part 4 (“Objects and What to Make of Them”), which look at the special significance of memories carried by simple objects handed down through generations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

• AcknowledgmentsPrologue: On Taking Renuka to Her First Concert Anne RanasingheIntroductionBettina Hofmann and Ursula ReuterPart ILanguage and Memory01The Tongue in ExileCarol Ascher02Translating Oral Memory and Visual Media in Ida Fink’s “Traces”Daniel Feldman03Lies of Ulysses in the Forgotten Camps: French Accounts by Mittelbau-Dora Survivors and Their Uses in Memory PoliticsBruno Arich-Gerz04French Canada as a Site of Holocaust Representation Rebecca MargolisPart IIMaking Sense of the Parents’ Holocaust History05Intimate Horror: Memorializing my Mother’s HolocaustDoron Ben-Atar06Invisible Ink: The Limits of RecoveryJulia Epstein and Lori Hope Lefkovitz07The Impact of the Shoah on One Scholar’s Journey: An Autobiographical ReflectionSteven Leonard Jacobs08Against Forgetting: An Essay in Three PartsElizabeth RosnerPart III1.5 Generation09Hebrew as “Remedy” to the Shoah in Dan Pagis’ PoetryFederico Dal Bo