Silence and Voices: Family History and Memorialization in Intergenerational Holocaust Literature

• Author / Creator

  Shewchuk, Sarah J.G.

• As survivors age, soon there will be no living witnesses of the Holocaust. At this turning point in history, my research examines how, and for what purposes, family history has been recorded by members of multiple generations of Jewish families in France, Canada, and the United States. Within an intergenerational continuum, my research compares works in English and French by Irène Némirovsky, Élisabeth Gille, Denise Epstein, Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Simon Schneiderman, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Jonathan Safran Foer in order to assess the various ways in which members of different generations have grappled with the Holocaust and its aftermath, as well as how they have memorialized Holocaust victims, survivors, and their descendents in different textual forms. By situating the works that I have chosen within a larger memorial tradition, examining the changing nature of textual memorialization in the digital age, and assessing the pedagogical role of literary representations of Holocaust family history, my research addresses the implications of intergenerational Holocaust literature for contemporary readers and members of generations that are yet to come.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Holocaust Literature
  • Family History
  • Memorialization
  • Generations

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3Q325

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.