Germany’s historical reckoning is a warning for the US
Germany is held up as the model for historical reconciliation. But as America grapples with the legacy of racial violence, the real lesson lies in the conversations Germans still can’t have, Erica Hellerstein in Codastory, 30 March 2022 >> lesen/read
Engaging the Past through Second Generation Dialogue
History, Trauma and Shame provides an in-depth examination of the sustained dialogue about the past between children of Holocaust survivors and descendants of families whose parents were either directly or indirectly involved in Nazi crimes. Taking an autobiographical narrative perspective, the chapters in the book explore the intersection of history, trauma and shame, and how change and transformation unfolds over time. The analyses of the encounters described in the book provides a close examination of the process of dialogue among members of The Study Group on Intergenerational Consequences of the Holocaust (PAKH), exploring how Holocaust trauma lives in the ‘everyday’ lives of descendants of survivors. It goes to the heart of the issues at the forefront of contemporary transnational debates about building relationships of trust and reconciliation in societies with a history of genocide and mass political violence. This book will be great interest for academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of social psychology, Holocaust or genocide studies, cultural studies, reconciliation studies, historical trauma and peacebuilding. It will also appeal to clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, as well as upper-level undergraduate students interested in the above areas.
With contributions by PAKH members Beata Hammerich, Erda Siebert, Peter Pogany-Wnendt, Johannes Pfäfflin and Elke Horn
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and holds the South African National Research Foundation Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is the author of the award-winning A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness.
This article addresses the transgenerational consequences of the Second World War and the Holocaust for the descendants of the Nazi perpetrators and bystanders. Using the example of her own family, the author traces the external obstacles and the psychological difficulties arising from working through a legacy of crime, compounded by the fact that an atmosphere of taboos, silence and denial has persisted within German families – in spite of all the research and enlightenment in the academic and political spheres. The author argues that the patterns of feeling, thinking and action are often passed down when they are not scrutinised. Meaningful dialogues with the survivors and their descendants, as well as authentic remembrance, the author claims, can only take place if descendants of the victimisers break away from those generationally transmitted narratives which continue to evade the entire truth about the crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices in Europe. in: European Judaism. A Journal for the New Europe, Vol. 53: Issue 2, September 2020, pages 77-86
Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past
Kongreßband zur “MEMORY, NARRATIVE, AND FORGIVENESS: REFLECTING ON TEN YEARS OF SOUTH AFRICA’S TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION” Conference
PAKH war mit einem eigenen Beitrag (“A Reflection on the Dialogue Process between second Generation Descendants of Perpetrators and of Holocaust Survivors in Germany”) vertreten. >> Cambridge Scholars Publishing