"All a Myth? Come and See for Yourself." Place as Holocaust Witness in Survivor and Second Generation Memoirs of Return

As long ago 1993, James E. Young noted that as many people now visit memorials every year died during the itself (Young 1993:x). Since then, the number of visitors has increased substantially: 1.38 million were recorded at Auschwitz in 2010 (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum 2011:20--21). The existence of pilgrimages such March of the Living, well the plethora of memoirs which describe visits to sites of memory, further suggests not only that traces of the may be found at the places where it happened, but that such traces enable a form of witnessing by non-survivors.1 The description of trips young Israelis to sites by Jackie Feldman creating of the witnesses is but one example of the powerful potential perceived in visiting sites of memory (Feldman 2002:85). Yet what is often lost or at the very least ignored in this scenario is the inadequacy of place a basis bearing witness. Through the analysis of two testimonies, Return to Auschwitz by Kitty Hart-Moxon (Hart 1981; Hart-Moxon 1997) and Seed of Sarah (1991) by Judith Magyar Isaacson, and two second generation memoirs, The War After: Living with the (1996) by English journalist Anne Karpf and Jewels and Ashes (1991) by Australian writer Arnold Zable, this article illustrates the vast differences in these generations' descriptions of visiting sites. The focus on the different roles of place in and second generation memoirs shows why it is problematic to draw on place to bear witness to the Holocaust, which sheds light on the consequences of tourism memory. Place in Narrative Despite the centrality of place and the associated themes of exile and displacement to narratives, this aspect has not often been investigated in literary criticism (Kandiyoti 2004:305). In fact, the spatial aspect of the has rarely been the focus of scholarly discourse. As Waitman Beorn et al. note, no comprehensive interpretations have identified and investigated the spaces and geographical patterns of the (Beorn et al. 2009:563). This article therefore responds to Dalia Kandiyoti's appeal for an expanded body of literary criticism on the Holocaust, one that treats place an important category through which to interpret the narrative of the survivor (Kandiyoti 2004:304). By extending the analysis to second generation memoirs--those by children of survivors--this article also grapples with intergenerational transmission of memory and the role of place in this process, expanding upon the limited research in this area, such that by Marita Grimwood (Grimwood 2007:201). It therefore not only illuminates the spatial aspect of memoirs, but adds a new aspect to the extensive discourse on descendants of survivors. What is a Witness? In order to analyse the way in which and second generation memoirs draw on place to write about the Holocaust, this article deploys the concept of witnessing. The writing of testimony by survivors is regarded bearing witness (Waxman 2006:3), and while second generation writing about the cannot be regarded in exactly the same way, second generation memoirs still bear witness to the effects of the Holocaust. Indeed, both Dvir Abramovich and Alan L. Berger refer to writing by the second generation bearing witness to the (Abramovich 2001; Berger 1990). The term Holocaust is generally understood to mean the mass murder of European Jews during the Second World War. (2) However, the narratives described in testimonies and second generation memoirs are personal versions of this historical event. Hence in this article, Holocaust refers to both these interpretations--the personal and the historical--and it is the interplay between the two which forms witnessing. …