Compelled to Share: Exploring Holocaust and Residential School Survivors’ Stories

Abstract

Employing Erll’s concept of travelling memory and Rothberg’s concept of multidirectional memory, Anderson explores how European memory operates beyond European boundaries in her analysis of the unique memory event Compelled to Remember. Co-organized by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the event brought together Holocaust survivors and former Aboriginal students from the Canadian residential school system to discuss the parallels and differences between the various experiences of historical trauma, injustice, and recovery. Anderson details the developments that led to the event and the growing dialogue between Holocaust and residential school survivors and their post-generation. The chapter assesses where this intercultural dialogue falls on Rothberg’s “politics of memory” map to understand better how memories of the Holocaust and colonialism have travelled together.