The Ones Who Remember: Second-Generation Voices of the Holocaust

by Rita Benn PhD (Editor), Julie Goldstein Ellis (Editor), Joy Wolfe Ensor PhD (Editor), Ruth Finkel Wade (Editor)

Overview

How do you talk about and make sense of your life when you grew up with parents who survived the most unimaginable horrors of family separation, systematic murder and unending encounters of inhumanity? Sixteen authors reveal the challenges and gifts of living with the aftermath of their parents’ inconceivable experiences during the Holocaust.

The Ones Who Remember: Second-Generation Voices of the Holocaust provides a window into the lived experience of sixteen different families grappling with the legacy of genocide. Each author reveals the many ways their parents’ Holocaust traumas and survival seeped into their souls and then affected their subsequent family lives – whether they knew the bulk of their parents’ stories or nothing at all.

Several of the contributors’ children share interpretations of the continuing effects of this legacy with their own poems and creative prose. Despite the diversity of each family's history and journey of discovery, the intimacy of the collective narratives reveals a common arc from suffering to resilience, across the three generations. This book offers a vision of a shared humanity against the background of inherited trauma that is relatable to anyone who grew up in the shadow of their parents’ pain.

Awards: Foreword Indies Gold Award for Anthologies, 2022 and Nautilus Silver Award for Heroic Journeys, 2023

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947951501
Publisher:	City Point Press
Publication date:	04/12/2022
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	101,548
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Rita Benn is a clinical psychologist and adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan medical school. She teaches mindfulness meditation to education and healthcare professionals, cancer patients and their caregivers and established nonprofits to advance its practice. Dr. Benn and her husband Steve, both originally from Montreal, have three children and three grandchildren.


Julie Ellis is devoted to family, elder care, and volunteerism. Like her survivor parents, she helps keep generations of her cousins connected. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Julie has held management positions in retail and consulting. She and her husband Charles, an emeritus professor, have a son and daughter-in-law who are journalists in New York.

Joy Wolfe Ensor is a psychologist whose professional career has focused heavily on the intergenerational legacy of trauma. She was born in New York City a few years after her parents and older brother arrived in the US. Joy and her husband Doug have two adult daughters and one granddaughter.

A retired executive, Ruth Wade currently volunteers at the Florida Holocaust Museum as a speaker and docent. She also assists her survivor father, Sidney Finkel, with his book and speaking engagements. Ruth grew up in Chicago and resided over twenty years in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has one son, named for her father’s brother Isaac.

Read an Excerpt

1. Screams in the Night
Ruth Taubman
2. The Attic Full of Photographs
Julie Goldstein Ellis
3. Drinking from a Half-Full Broken Glass
Avishay Hayut
4. I Don’t Remember
Nancy Szabo
5. Shades of Chanel No. 5
Rita Benn
6. Generation to Generation
Sassa Åkervall
7. Memorize This Address
Ava Adler

8. Lessons from My Parents
Natalie Iglewicz
9. Cutting Corners
Phil Barr
10. Always an Outsider
Cilla Tomas
11. Chesed
Simone Yehuda
12. If Only
Eszter Gombosi
13. Please Remember
Myra Fox
14. Osmosis
Fran Lewy Berg
15. Not Made of Glass
Ruth Wade
16. One Day the World Will Be the World Again
Joy Wolfe Ensor
Endnotes
Contributors
Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

Foreword Irene Hasenberg Butter vii

Introduction Rita Benn Julie Goldstein Ellis Joy Wolfe Ensor Ruth Wade xiii

1 Screams in the Night Ruth Taubman 1

2 The Attic Full of Photographs Julie Goldstein Ellis 11

3 Drinking from a Half-Full Broken Glass Avishay Hayut 37

4 I Don't Remember Nancy Szabo 57

5 Shades of Chanel No. 5 Rita Benn 76

6 Generation to Generation Sassa Åkervall 105

7 Memorize This Address Ava Adler 117

8 Lessons from My Parents Natalie Iglewicz 133

9 Cutting Corners Phil Barr 150

10 Always an Outsider Cilia Tomas 172

11 Chesed Simone Yehuda 190

12 If Only Eszter Gombosi 204

13 Please Remember Myra Fox 225

14 Osmosis Fran Lewy Berg 244

15 Not Made of Glass Ruth Wade 274

16 One Day the World Will Be the World Again Joy Wolfe Ensor 294

Endnotes 325

Contributors 327

Acknowledgments 333