KINDERTRANSPORT MEMOIRS: BETWEEN FORMULATING KNOWLEDGE OF A PAINFUL PAST AND CONTAINING TRAUMATIC IMPACT

Abstract

ABSTRACTKindertransport memoirs are an invaluable resource providing an insight into the world of child refugees who faced upheaval when separated from their family and friends in 1938/9. This article examines the representation of trauma in memoirs by Vera Gissing (1988), Martha Blend (1995), Edith Milton (2005), and Marion Charles (2013). Investigating the limits of language and the constraints that traumatic memory places upon representation, this article addresses the question of how a traumatic event, which seems to exceed the limits of understanding and even of language, can be represented by the author. An examination of these memoirs reveals how children of the Kindertransport attempt to formulate knowledge and a narrative of their past – a requirement of the literary memoir genre – yet are simultaneously challenged by the unrepresentable nature of traumatic experience. This article illuminates how memoirists attempt to convey their upsetting childhood and construct a personal narrative of trauma by containing traumatic impact.