3G Books

After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust- Eva Hoffman

In seven short essays, Hoffman focuses on the consciousness and experience of the Holocaust’s second generation-the children of survivors-as theirs is a “strong case-study in the deep and long-lasting impact of atrocity.”  Synthesizing personal history (born in Cracow, Poland, in 1945, Hoffman left at the age of 13 with her parents) with astute gleanings from the fields of psychoanalysis, sociology and literary criticism, the book considers such diverse concepts as how the “trauma” of the Holocaust is constructed, the role of emigration and national identity in shaping the second generation’s narratives of their lives and how works as diverse as Marguerite Duras’s The War: A Memoir and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader helped shape a series of conflicting ideas about victimhood and responsibility.

Bending Toward the Sun- Leslie Gilbert-Lurie

A story of a unique family bond forged in the wake of brutal terror.  The book chronicles Leslie's mother's remarkable journey from Holocaust survivor and refugee to American citizen.

Children of the Holocaust- Helen Epstein

A ground-breaking book that is part autobiography, part interviews.  Epstein does not sentimentalize, soften, or patronize her subjects.  Some are proud Jews, others pass.  Some break the most sensitive of taboos (incest), others conform.  Some are productive members of their societies, others struggle.  All live with the Holocaust experiences of their parents as either presence or absence.

Children of the Shadows: Voices of the Second Generation

The children of survivors of the Holocaust, the second generation, are in middle life, their own children already independent.  This volume contains a collection of personal reflections of “the child” and what it meant to grow up in a home affected by the shadows of the Holocaust.

Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safran Foer

A young American Jew journeys to Ukraine in search of Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather’s life during the Nazi liquidation of Trachimbrod, his family shtetl.

Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust- Dan Bar-On

Genia spent two years in Auschwitz.  Ze’ev fought with the Partisans.  Olga hid in the Aryan section of Warsaw. Anya fled to Russia.  Laura lived in Libya under the Italian fascist regime.  All five survived the Holocaust, emigrated to Israel, and started families there.  How the traumatic experience of these survivors has been transmitted, even transformed, from one generation to the next is the focus of Fear and Hope.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Second Generation- Aaron Hass

What are the effects of growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust?  Drawing on interviews and survey materials, Aaron Hass provides a vibrant account of the experiences of survivors’ children.  Now in their thirties and forties, these men and women describe their relationships with their parents and offer their perceptions of the impact of the Holocaust on their families.  They give voice to memories and feelings about which some of them have never spoken before.  A child of survivors himself and a distinguished clinical psychologist, Hass writes about the lingering presence of the Holocaust in his own life.

Jew Boy- Alan Kafman

Jew Boy tells the story of a young boy growing up in the complex shadow of his mother’s survival of the Holocaust.  He struggles to comprehend what it means to be Jewish as he deals with the demons haunting his mother and attempts to escape his wretched home life by devoting himself to high school football.  He eventually hitchhikes across the country, coming face-to-face with the very phantoms he has fled.

Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and WWII- Mona Sue Weissmark

In 1992 Weissmark brought together 22 Jews and Germans for a four-day meeting at Harvard University.  They were sons and daughters of concentration camp survivors and sons and daughters of Nazis.  Weissmark, a psychologist and the child of Holocaust survivors, undertook a study to examine how injustice influences interpersonal behavior as the participants tried to come to terms with the past and with each other.  Drawing on interviews and the conference findings, the book uncovers a complex story and reveals how unjust, painful events of years ago continue to shape the legacies of both survivors’ and Nazis’ children.

Maus- Art Spiegelman

The book alternates the stories told by Spiegelman’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, about life in Poland before and during the Second World War, with the contemporary life of Art, Vladek and their loved ones in the Rego Park neighborhood of New York City.  The book recounts the struggle of Vladek Spiegelman living with his family in Radomsko, Czestochowa, Sosnowiec and Bielsko in the late 1930s and his tragic odyssey during the war which ultimately led him to Auschwitz as prisoner 175113.

The Pages In Between- Erin Einhorn

When reporter Erin Einhorn found the family that hid her mother from the Nazis during World War II, she thought she’d created a made-for-TV-reunion for two families thrown together by history.  A man who knew her mother as a child threw his arms around her and – tears streaming down his face – told her the little girl had been a sister to him.  But the initial embrace soon gave way to half a century’s hurt feelings and resentments.  Erin found herself apologizing for choices made years before she was born, untangling a real estate deal made on a handshake by people no longer alive and struggling to prove the death of a great-grandfather born in 1868.  Then, as she confronted the heart-wrenching circumstances of her family’s tragic past, unexpected events in her own life altered her mission completely.

The Rat Laughs- Nava Semel

The Rat Laughs is a five-part novel dealing with the horrors of the Holocaust and the influence of this harrowing chapter of human history on man’s relationship with God; on the understanding of human nature; on the need to forget in order to survive; and on the need to remember, nonetheless.

Part One is the story of a nameless five-year-old child, as it is told to her granddaughter years later.  The child`s parents entrust her to a family of farmers living in a remote, picturesque village.  She is hidden in a dark potato cellar for approximately a year, with little food and only a rat for company – and raped repeatedly by the farmers` son.

Part Two is the granddaughter`s diary, which sheds more light on the survivor`s story as well as on the title of the novel.  The rat, according to the alternative myth of creation related by the grandmother, demanded that God grant him the gift of laughter, but soon came to realize God`s most miserable mistake: “… in a world where children must be hidden …chaos is not simply an incidental “bug,” but a complete systems breakdown.  Such a world should be destroyed from its foundations and rebuilt from the start.”

Part Three, a collection of poems ostensibly written by the survivor child, is followed by a research report (Part Four) written in the year 2099 by an anthropologist bent on uncovering the origins of the widespread “Girl and Rat” myth.  This chapter, which defines myth as “encrypted historical memory,” is also a reflection on the nature of memory – its persistent presence in man`s consciousness; its scarring effects; and the possibility of subsequent hope: “A historical scar is indeed no guarantee that horrific events will not repeat themselves; the existence of memory can, nevertheless, grant some hope.”

Part Five, the novel`s final chapter, is the diary of the priest who takes the child in.  In an attempt to restore her speech, her hope and her faith in God and mankind, he discovers that he has lost his own.

The Silence: How Tragedy Shapes Talk- Ruth Wajnryb

Silence is often the most powerful form of communication and it is silence that still dominates the homes of Holocaust survivors and their families, even after half a century.  Through interviews with children of survivors, this book explores communication in survivor families from the perspective of the postwar generation. Explaining the effects of trauma on communication, this book offers an understanding of the language of silence that often becomes the first step to healing.