ABSTRACT
Vaterliteratur, the literary genre characterised by tormented familial narratives written by the descendants of Nazi perpetrators, offers important opportunities to analyse how the Holocaust and National Socialism are remembered by those who did not personally experience it. Central to analysing the texts, is examining the father–son and father–daughter perspective of the author. Sons who write Vaterliteratur frequently see their adult self in their paternal figure and are compelled to grapple with whether they would have acted in a similar manner. Sigfrid Gauch typifies the postmemory that Vaterliteratur involves, as he did not personally experience National Socialism yet lived with a sense of a vicarious past. Poignant examples of Vaterliteratur, although not historical texts themselves, have provided students with historical sources and accounts they were previously unfamiliar with: the descendants of Nazi perpetrators grappling with their own legacy.
