Toward Postmemory

I wrote the monograph Wobec postpamięci [Toward Postmemory] based on my Ph.D. thesis, which I defended in July 2019 at the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations, Jagiellonian University, Kraków. I spent several years exploring second-generation texts, and this monograph represents my effort to systematize the material I collected. Like the original dissertation, this monograph would not have been possible without the academic support of many people. I thank my thesis supervisor, Professor Piotr Mróz from the Institute of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, for overseeing my work, and the reviewers, Professor Aleksandra Pawliszyn from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and Professor Ryszard Różanowski from the University of Wrocław, for their insightful and inspiring comments, which allowed me to polish the text before submitting it for publication. My thanks also go to Professor Stanisław Obirek from the University of Warsaw for his valuable suggestions on the work’s composition and its final shape.

I express my gratitude to all the reviewers for highlighting additional interpretative perspectives and research avenues that may uncover new aspects of the works under analysis and broaden the context of the postmemory phenomenon. I found their advice extremely valuable both in relation to this particular book and in regard to plans for further scholarly reflection on the Holocaust and identity of the “generation after.” The present book assumes a cultural studies approach when interpreting the postmemorial narratives of survivors’ children. Thus, I deliberately limit myself to signaling certain themes that fall outside the accepted profile of consideration. My sincere thanks are also due to Professor Marta Kudelska from the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations, whose precise guidance proved indispensable during the writing and subsequent editing of the text. Finally, I thank Jolanta Toll, my mother and first reader of this monograph, and Joanna Malita-Król for an academic exchange of methodological experiences.

The English translation of the volume became possible owing to a grant from the National Programme for the Development of Humanities (Uniwersalia module 2.1, competition 12) of the Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland, and the support of the editorial team at the Peter Lang Publishing House. My special thanks go to Professor Sławomir Żurek, editor of the Studies in Jewish History and Memory series, and editor Łukasz Gałecki, who oversaw the entire procedure. I also thank Grupa Mowa for their English translation of the book, and their professionalism, commitment, and substantive support throughout the book translation process.

The second generation … tainted with the echo of the past.1

The study of postmemory, alongside the related question of second-generation Jewish identity in post-Holocaust Poland, represents a timely area of scholarly inquiry. The specific nature of postmemorial narratives, coupled with their temporal shift, and the unique circumstances of individuals of Jewish origin who grew up in postwar Poland caused a significant delay in the emergence of second-generation voices. Their autobiographical texts bear witness to long decades of silence. The rise of postmemory literature in the twenty-first century intertwines with the gradual loss of the generation who directly witnessed the Holocaust. People born after the war are increasingly shaping the discourse on the matter, while their contributions consistently lead to reflections on the functioning of Holocaust memory and postmemory, the responsibilities and roles of witnesses, and the complexities of intergenerational transmission of trauma. Unsurprisingly, scholars representing various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences—such as history, literary studies, cultural and religious sciences, sociology, and psychology—are currently focusing on the memoir literature of the children of Holocaust survivors. Their work expresses the authors’ identities, outlines intimate maps of Polish–Jewish relations in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, and attests to the evolving memory of the Holocaust. This monograph also reflects their interest. However, the choice of a research theme relating to the Holocaust2 poses a challenge and necessitates particular caution: as Dominick LaCapra has rightly diagnosed, confronting Holocaust testimonies involves becoming a secondary witness.3

This challenge increases even further, as this updated version4 of the monograph Wobec postpamięci [Toward Postmemory] currently has the potential to reach an international audience, transcending its Polish cultural and linguistic context. My research has long focused on the identity and memory of Poland’s second-generation Jewish community and its enduring struggle to grapple with the Holocaust’s profound legacy. My interest dates back to my first, not yet fully conscious, literary encounter with the works of the so-called “generation after,” namely the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, which stands central to this subject matter. However, only subsequent engagement with Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory enabled me to develop the necessary theoretical framework that serves as the foundation of this monograph. The most important aspect of my deliberations was the opportunity to focus on individual memoir narratives. These narratives illustrate a phenomenon unique to a particular national and social context and simultaneously support a thesis on the distinctive nature of Polish postmemory. Uncovering the symptoms of the Polish postmemorial experience requires an analysis that highlights the key aspects of memory and identity among the second generation of Jews in Poland after the Holocaust and demonstrates how historical and political circumstances have shaped these aspects.

This book consists of two parts: a theoretical part, covering Chapters 1–4, and an analytical part, covering Chapters 5–11. The theoretical part of the book begins with Chapter 1 and its definitional and methodological remarks on Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, its origins, and the contemporary contexts. Chapter 2 introduces the phenomenon we can describe as Polish postmemory, which significantly departs from Hirsch’s concept in several crucial respects. Taking into account the distinct character of postwar Poland ruled by communist authorities (Polish People’s Republic, 1944–89), I pay attention to how the processes of shaping the official narrative and the official memory of the past influenced the Polish postmemorial experience, as well as the broader academic and public discourse on the Holocaust in the second half of the twentieth century. These issues are crucial for understanding contemporary Polish–Jewish identities, highlighting key distinctions that demand careful attention. This especially applies to readers accustomed to examining the phenomenon of postmemory primarily through the lens of Holocaust survivor families in the United States or Western Europe. In Chapter 3, I select the source material and delineate the collection of works under analysis based on selected criteria. This collection includes memoir texts published in Polish after the year 2000 whose authors represent the “generation after,” focus on the familial dimension of postmemory and identity construction, have similar social and biographical circumstances, and can form a group with shared generational experiences. Moreover, I attempt to answer the question regarding the status of postmemorial testimonies as historical sources—in the light of the comments of experts such as Dori Laub, Karein Goertz, and Yehuda Bauer. Chapter 4 delves into the key issues surrounding the identity of second-generation representatives—as understood by Alan Berger5—of Jews in Poland after the Holocaust. This chapter may hold particular relevance to international readers; it takes a closer look at the distinctive nature of Polish–Jewish identities in the postwar decades of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries against the background of selected sociological studies and concepts. Chapter 4 outlines the social and cultural context in which the Polish postmemory experience is taking shape, once again emphasizing its unique character.

The more extensive analytical section focuses on the interpretation of autobiographical texts of six writers born in the 1940s and 1950s to families of Holocaust survivors, whose works we can read as identity declarations: Ewa Kuryluk (born in 1946), Bożena Keff (born in 1948), Roman Gren (born in 1951), Magdalena Tulli (born in 1955), Agata Tuszyńska (born in 1957), and Monika Sznajderman (born in 1959). These authors share a common biographical background and similar experiences of growing up in families affected by the trauma of the Holocaust. Moreover, their postmemory works focus on reflections on identity, Jewish—or, more precisely, Polish–Jewish—origins, and strategies for introducing a difficult heritage into their own identity projects. I discuss these writers in chronological order—by dates of birth rather than by publication years. This arrangement offers several key advantages. First, it provides an organized framework allowing readers to engage with the work of each author. Second, it gives full voice to the unique postmemorial experiences of the second generation. Each of the chapters in the analytical section, which begins with a brief introduction, focuses on a particular writer and sparks a reflection on the individual experience of postmemory. I have deliberately chosen this arrangement instead of organizing the text around recurring motifs, to best showcase the diversity of identity strategies that the “generation after” employs. This approach emphasizes the unique nature of narratives, which they retain despite sharing the same cultural context.

Some of the literary works discussed in the monograph still await translation into English. As a result, presenting my reflections to an international audience offers a unique opportunity to introduce these works of memoir literature, even if only in part, to readers outside Poland, and to highlight the postmemory narratives they convey. Readers can access English translations6 of Agata Tuszyńska’s Family History of Fear: A Memoir (Rodzinna historia lęku)7 (2016, Polish edition 2005) and Bożena Keff’s On Mother and Fatherland (Utwór o Matce i Ojczyźnie)8 (2017, Polish edition 2008), which constitute less than half of the texts indicated as source material in this book. This monograph serves a double purpose. First, it explores and analyzes the phenomenon of Polish postmemory through the identity narratives of the second generation of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Second, it enables their testimonies to exist beyond a specific linguistic context, thereby enriching the repository of collective knowledge and memory of the Holocaust. Making the postmemorial works of Polish authors accessible to audiences unable to read the original texts will facilitate their inclusion in international scholarly discussions. Such an approach aligns with contemporary Holocaust studies, which prioritize a multilingual and comparative perspective.

According to Przemysław Czapliński, Holocaust literature still lacks a definition, more than half a century after the war.9 “Practising plurality and contradiction, constant testing of various narrative models, continual changes in perspectives, [and] searching,”10 its flexible framework also incorporated second- and third-generation memoirs—as well as, one can assume, texts of the subsequent generation of so-called “witnesses by adoption.”11 In doing so, Holocaust literature is introducing new concepts, definitions, and research perspectives,12 or even—as Michał Głowiński highlights—a shift in the research paradigm for writing about the Holocaust.13 We should note, however, that second-generation or postmemorial literature navigates between the Holocaust itself, the uncertainties surrounding the late recognition of one’s own origins, and the need for self-definition amidst powerful narratives of trauma. As a result, issues of identity emerge as a central theme.14 In diagnosing Polish postmemorial literature, Aleksandra Szczepan notes that these works’ dominant aspect is “the question of Jewish identity, but always in confrontation with the Polish, political, and mental context.”15 The works discussed in the monograph confirm this rule. Attempting to confront their traumatic heritage, the authors employ diverse identity strategies and associated literary conventions, but they consistently return to their childhood and adolescent years. This return to the past serves to break the silence and enable them to (re)gain their voices and subjectivity.

These texts do not—and may not—serve as a representative sample for the generation of survivors’ children. Such an approach would overlook potential testimonies that have not become and may never become public. Those testimonies would comprise the experiences of all those representatives of the second generation who failed to disclose their origins. Małgorzata Melchior refers to this methodological problem in her fundamental study of contemporary Polish–Jewish identity.16 If we agree with Artur Sandauer’s remarks that the heritage of Jewish identity balances on two extremes—“You can only either deny it or display it”17—we must consciously assume that testimonies of complete denial, namely reactions that are utterly negative, remain inaccessible to researchers. However, the works in question reveal the attitudes that the second generation may adopt in the context of postmemory: they record individual struggles with what Głowiński describes as “inner inhibitions and fears”18 and the process of identity formation of the Holocaust survivors’ children. Therefore, my reflections did not focus on developing a universal theory to define the identity of the second generation of Jews in Poland after the Holocaust. Instead, I concentrated on examining individual cases and personal histories to determine the processes and tendencies characteristic of the postmemory generation among the representatives of the “generation after.” Each time, the process reveals identity dissonance and a split between looking back and trying to find one’s place in the current space-time continuum.

When asked about the specific nature of Polish–Jewish memory, Marek Edelman notes that a problem posed in this way must inevitably fail. We cannot speak of one Polish–Jewish memory, or even of one Polish memory and one Jewish memory:

The memories of a Jewish policeman who escorted his wife to a train differ from those of a Jewish policeman who succeeded in keeping his wife and child alive. The memories of a child who survived inside a convent differ from those of a woman who survived peacefully on the so-called Aryan side…. These people have a different attitude to the past.19