After the return from Lager: the literature of post-memory in Italy

Abstract

The paper explores the problems related to the idea of intergenerational transfer of memory, using the structure coined by Marianne Hirsch with the word postmemory, and analyzes in particular the case of the translingual author Edith Bruck, a representative of first generation, who experienced the persecutions first hand. In particular will be taken into account the book Signora Auschwitz (1999), that reflects on the impossibility of overcoming the horror of the Lager, despite the act of witnessing, and the last book released Il pane perduto (2021). Finally, the paper focuses on the second generation of Jews, trying to show how we can talk also in Italy of a «postmemorian literature» for what concerns the trauma of the Shoah, starting from the case of Helena Janeczek (Lezioni di tenebra, 1997).