Memoirs and Healing: Howard Reich's <em>The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich</em> Read through the Lens of a Trauma Victim

Abstract

My husband, Jamie Bishop, was murdered on 16 April 2007 while teaching German at Virginia Tech. In this piece, I reflect on my process of recovery as assisted by reading memoirs. Drawing from literary, cultural, and psychological research, I focus on the second-generation Holocaust memoir The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich , written by Howard Reich, whose mother succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd ) in old age. As is not uncommon in “postmemorial writings,” Reich’s narrative acknowledges the impossibility of reconstructing how his mother survived the Holocaust as an orphan on the run. Instead, he attempts to comprehend her emotional reactions to a world of extreme terror. As a result, he accepts her path of coping—silence—while breaking his own (silence) to raise awareness of childhood trauma and late-onset ptsd . I conclude that memoirs validated my own traumatic reactions and memories, and that they paved the way for my narration of them in the following.