The two memoirs in this month’s reading exemplify central issues in the intersection of history and memory – the subject of Rosen’s scholarship in Sister in Sorrow. The first memoir, Clara’s War, contributes greatly to Holocaust literature by turning readers’ attention not only to the evils and horrors so prevalent in this corpus (even though they make shocking appearances throughout the memoir, especially when various people describe to Beck they eagerness in murdering Jews – on pp. 271-272, for example) but mainly to the compassion and bravery easily lost in the ocean of mass violence. As issues related to rescue should stand at the center of Holocaust and genocide scholarship and education, this memoir could constitute a significant component in high-school and university curriculums.
Based on a diary, Clara’s War raises questions about the reformulation of history into memory. For example, one could certainly ask why Clara Kramer chose to publish a memoir rather than some version of her original diary. However, the memoir touches on major issues in Holocaust scholarship.
Most remarkable, Beck lived as a self-proclaimed antisemitic drunkard (p. 94), who took advantage of any opportunity to conduct sexual affairs (see also p. 235). Yet this person together with his wife and daughter hid 18 people under their house for two years. Putting themselves at great risk, this man and his family saved men, women, and children whom he had barely known before World War II. Even more amazing, the Becks made great efforts to ensure the emotional and spiritual well-being of the people they rescued; considering the circumstances, they succeeded beyond imagination (see, for instance, the gifts that the Becks gave to the Jews they were hiding on Christmas, 1942 – p. 90).
Clara’s War also describes instances of Amida (see the mention of an underground school for Jewish children, organized by Clara’s mother – p. 48), humor in the service of survival (p. 189), and cooperation as well as tensions between different kinds of Jews in the dreadful situations of genocide (see the efforts of Clara’s mother to feed persecuted Jews [ p. 50], on the one hand, and the relations between the Steckels and the rest of the people in the bunker [p. 129], on the other hand). Finally, the book illuminates one case of a Volksdeutsche family in Poland that almost fell victim to Soviet revenge which would have constituted a horrible injustice.
In several fascinating places, Clara’s War employs a religious-mystical tone and imagery. This phenomenon also speaks to meeting points between history and memory. Such descriptions appear most clearly on pp. 42-43 and 307-308, framing the narrative between the synagogue that the Germans failed to burn and a priest whose actions brought Clara’s mother back to life. These intriguing parts in the memoir deserve separate analysis.
In contrast to Clara’s War, Inheriting the Holocaust misses the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of history and memory. Rather, this memoir presents itself at times as history. Especially in light of the inaccuracies and errors in such sections, such pretense largely fails. The author, Paula Fass, has stated the book’s goal quite clearly: “So many Jews disappeared this way [from life as well as from memory], but I had hoped to save at least my family from this common fate.” (p. 50). Striving to accomplish this task, Fass paid little attention to memory as memory, instead providing her readers with lengthy descriptions that seem no less marked by myths than the Poland she eventually decides that leave behind forever.
As mentioned above, Rosen’s book deals mainly with “…the meeting point between history and story, and examines the ways in which one is expanded, enriched, or contradicted by the other.” (p. 131). Rosen therefore puts forward a strong argument concerning the need for multidisciplinary research in the field of Holocaust Studies (pp. 89-90). Indeed, she chose to employ literary-psychoanalytic and phenomenological-hermeneutic approaches.
Rosen discusses the dream-like features in some of the oral histories she has collected, emphasizing the function of “free association” in survivors’ oral accounts (pp. 54 and 61-62): “Thus, under the veil of free association is a layer of painful issues whose expression needs camouflage and tempering.” (pp. 61-62; see also Rosen’s related interest in the reasons that led some Holocaust survivors from Hungary to remain in that country after World War II – pp. 63-64). For scholars, such implicit and hidden layers in survivors’ accounts hold valuable information and insights (see also pp. 125-126 regarding the “darker text” that many Holocaust survivors feel unable to reveal in their narratives). Rosen also treats instances of “displacement” as defense mechanisms used by interviews in order to bypass problematic issues (p. 65).
Interestingly, Fass’s book demonstrates some of Rosen’s points, but refrains from diving into their complex contents and meanings in the case of her family. For example, she tells her readers about the many secrets that characterized her parents’ lives, only to connect them to an account of east European Jewish life full of generalizations (notwithstanding her criticism earlier in the book of tendencies to generalize regarding east European Jewry) and empty of possible insights that may confirm or challenge Rosen’s analysis (pp. 168-172). For Fass, her mother’s “knowledge” – no longer even memory! – and the secrets that her mother “shared with me” (p. 172) assume a central place in the narrative; Rosen, by contrast, trains her lens on the hidden layers, holding numerous memories and conflicting “truths.” Likewise, Fass uses the word “dreamlike” to describe her first trip to Poland: “That sense of experience and memories merging into a dreamlike reality was gone.” (p. 183). Her too, readers will search in vain to find in-depth elaboration of this issue throughout the book.
While these three books differ from each other in significant ways, they all exhibit personal tones burdened by a lingering sense of loss – loss of people, loss of places, and loss of memoires. In the face of irretrievable lives and geographies, they all struggle against the threat of an erased memory; and their efforts, while flawed to some extent, teach much about the possibilities and limits – the horizons and injustices – that emerge in the aftermath of genocide.
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