Memory Mediation by First- and Second-Generation Survivors: Why They Said Nothing: Mother and Daughter on One and the Same War by Magda Bošan Simin and Nevena Simin

Abstract

The reasons for researching the works of Yugoslav author Magda Bosan Simin are several: (1) her novel When the Sour Cherries Bloom (1958) was probably the first literary representation of the Holocaust written by a woman author in Yugoslavia; (2) Bosan Simin represents the Holocaust in multiple formats (documentary prose, memoir, autobiographical novel); (3) the book Why They Said Nothing: Mother and Daughter on One and the Same War (2009, English edition 2015) is a narrative comprised of texts written by both Magda Bosan Simin as a Holocaust survivor and her daughter Nevena Simin as a second-generation Holocaust survivor. The research focuses on Holocaust survivors and their post-Holocaust children, issues of memory in Holocaust representation, types of memory, memory mediation, author’s intentionality, gender and identity issues.