Toward Postmemory : Second Generation Holocaust Survivors in Contemporary Polish Memoir Literature (Studies in Jewish History and Memory)

The book thoroughly explores postmemory in the Polish historical and political contexts to reveal the multidimensional identity strategies of the second generation of Jews in Poland after the Holocaust, also called the "generation after". The book thoroughly explores postmemory in the Polish historical and political contexts to reveal the multidimensional identity strategies of the second generation of Jews in Poland after the Holocaust, also called the "generation after". Kuchta provides a captivating reflection by focusing on transgenerational transmission of trauma, strategies adapted toward the Holocaust legacy, and ways of constructing Polish-Jewish identity projects in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book comparatively analyzes literary works by the "generation after" while considering the influence of postmemory on the identity of people born after the Second World War. To that end, Kuchta analyzes autobiographical threads in texts by six Polish writers born in the 1940s and 1950s into families of Holocaust survivors, whose works can be read as identity declarations, namely Ewa Kuryluk, Bozena Keff, Roman Gren, Magdalena Tulli, Agata Tuszynska, and Monika Sznajderman. Introduction to the English Edition - Chapter 1: Postmemory - Chapter 2: The Nature of Polish Postmemory and Associated Research - Chapter 3: Polish Postmemorial Texts and Their Status in Holocaust Discourse - Chapter 4: Identity in the Context of Poland's Second Generation of Jews After the Holocaust - Chapter 5: Opalizing Identity of the Second Generation of Jews in Poland After the Holocaust - Chapter 6: History Hidden in Boots: Ewa Kuryluk's Goldi. Apoteoza zwierzaczkowatosci (2004), Frascati. Apoteoza topografii (2009), and Feluni. Apoteoza enigmy (2019) - Chapter 7: Fight for Territory, Fight for Identity: Bozena Keff's On Mother and Fatherland (2017) - Chapter 8: The Dream About the Jewish Family: Roman Gren's Wyznanie (2012) - Chapter 9: The Girl Who Is Learning How to Speak: Magdalena Tulli's Wloskie szpilki (2011) and Szum (2014) - Chapter 10: The Biography of a Mystery: Agata Tuszynska's Family History of Fear (2005) - Chapter 11: An Alternative to Presence: Monika Sznajderman's Falszerze pieprzu. Historia rodzinna (2016) - Conclusion Anna Kuchta is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations at the Jagiellonian University. Her research interests include postmemory, trauma, and tracing relations between literature and culture.