Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust

This text describes how the traumatic experience of five survivors of the Holocaust has been transmitted from one generation to the next. Genia spent two years in Auschwitz; Ze'ev fought with the Partisans; Olga hid in the Aryan section of Warsaw; Anya fled to Russia; and Laura lived in Libya under the Italian fascist regime. All five emigrated to Israel and started families there. From survivors to grandchildren, members of these families narrate their own stories across three generations, revealing their different ways of confronting the original trauma of the Holocaust. This work identifies several main themes that run throughout: how family members reconstruct major life events in their narratives, what stories remain untold and what is remembered and what forgotten. Together, these life stories and analyses explore the intergenerational reverberations of the Holocaust, particularly the ongoing tension between achieving renewal in the present and preserving the past. This book provides an account of the interplay between individual biography and wider social and cultural processes, offering a new perspective on the transgenerational effects of trauma along with new hope for families facing the task of "working through".