On The Im/Possibility of Mourning the Holocaust

Abstract

This meditation on the nature of transgenerational transmission of Holocaust trauma and the possibility/impossibility of mourning the Holocaust was triggered, like the residue of a waking dream, by the author’s chance encounter with a private, intimate moment. This paper examines four evoked experiential listening positions that the author places in relation to her own responses as a child of Holocaust survivors. As with dreams, her meditation aims at healing; reveals personal infantile and neurotic defenses, conflicts, and memories; and bears on current social and cultural ways to relate to trauma.