Między historią mówioną, psychologią ocalenia a traumą drugiego pokolenia.
Between Oral History, Survival Psychology, and the Trauma of the Second Generation.

Commentary on Mikołaj Grynberg’s Books Ocaleni z XX wieku [20th Century Survivors] and Oskarżam Auschwitz. Opowieści rodzinne [I Blame Auschwitz. Family stories]

Summary/Abstract: This text is not a review of Mikołaj Grynberg’s two books mentioned in the title but a proposition of their joint reading in the context of oral Holocaust history on the one hand and re􀏐lection on the Holocaust heritage in the ‘second generation’, that is the generation of survivors’ children, on the other. I pursue the former goal by inscribing Ocaleni z XX wieku in the oral history documentary-research tradition, including an attempt to interpret the testimonies from that book in the categories of ‘deep memory’ and its types distinguished by Lawrence Langer in his excellent book Holocaust Testimonies. The Ruins of Memory, which has recently been published in Polish. To achieve the second goal, that is, to bring out the tensions between the 􀏐irst and the second, post-Holocaust generation, I compare Grynberg’s two books with Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Last but not least, I inquire about the boundaries of the community of Holocaust memory as ‘family memory’.

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