ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 looks at the structure of children’s testimonies in order to examine whether children’s memories indicate a different mode of experiencing the Holocaust, moulding new identities and understandings of Jewishness. In what ways has age and particularly childhood influenced the narratives of war and its aftermath in adulthood? Do generational differences in childhood, as defined by Holocaust scholarship on child survivors, play a role in memory so that we can talk about a generational memory of the Holocaust? Can one approach children’s experience of war through the memory of adulthood? How can we analyse the enfoldment of trauma in the body? These are the main questions around which the investigation of child survivors’ memory will be pursued. The chapter holds the view that we need a close look at forms of narration that make possible the communication of genocide and enable us to understand the sense of space and time under conditions of unbearable suffering.
