‘And I Did Want to Pass’: Reading Canadian Second Generation Holocaust Memoirs as Migration Texts
Abstract
One aspect of post-Holocaust Jewish life to which little attention has been paid in the study of Holocaust literature is the experience of migration. This article examines three Canadian Second Generation Holocaust memoirs and their portrayal of migration. Memoirs by Jewish-Canadian authors prove to be particularly beneficial for analyzing aspects of migration because the immigration of Canada’s survivors often took place when their children were old enough to consciously experience it. Lisa Appignanesi’s Losing the Dead (1999), Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation (1989), and Elaine Kalman Naves’s Shoshanna’s Story (2003) all depict the challenges of the arrival to 1950s Canada. The memoirs explore the ways in which the young immigrants cope with dislocation, alienation, and belonging. Against the backdrop of a traumatic family history, they experience different forms of ‘cultural crossings’ - for instance, with regard to language, the immigrant’s body, or religious identity. The focus on migration in Second Generation memoirs highlights the transnational and transcultural rather than merely the transgenerational features of Holocaust memory.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Introduction: Crossroads – Canadian Cultural Intersections
- ‘And I Did Want to Pass’: Reading Canadian Second Generation Holocaust Memoirs as Migration Texts
- The Self and the City: Narrating ‘Glocal’ Spaces and Identities in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For
- The North Comes South: Seasonal Nordicity in Montreal in the Short Stories of Monique Proulx and Clark Blaise
- From Finding a Voice to Being Heard: Overcoming Current Challenges of Canadian Children’s Literature
- Official Languages and Multiculturalism: The ‘Other’ Languages
- The “Old Peacekeeper” Confronts the “New World Order”: Canadian Power and Purpose from Suez to Afghanistan
- Buchbesprechungen
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Introduction: Crossroads – Canadian Cultural Intersections
- ‘And I Did Want to Pass’: Reading Canadian Second Generation Holocaust Memoirs as Migration Texts
- The Self and the City: Narrating ‘Glocal’ Spaces and Identities in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For
- The North Comes South: Seasonal Nordicity in Montreal in the Short Stories of Monique Proulx and Clark Blaise
- From Finding a Voice to Being Heard: Overcoming Current Challenges of Canadian Children’s Literature
- Official Languages and Multiculturalism: The ‘Other’ Languages
- The “Old Peacekeeper” Confronts the “New World Order”: Canadian Power and Purpose from Suez to Afghanistan
- Buchbesprechungen
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
