Survivor Family Memory Work at Sites of Holocaust Remembrance: Institutional Enlistment or Family Agency?

Abstract

Contrary to analyses of top-down national intervention in and construction of familial memory, a study of intergenerational memory work at communal sites of Holocaust memory shows the family’s enlistment of institutions as resources to salvage lost or silent Holocaust memory. The memory work carried out by families of Holocaust survivors at a number of such sites reveals both the top-down enlistment of familial memory and the bottom-up intergenerational transmission of Holocaust tales within the family. The findings highlight processes of negotiation and cooperation between state-run public institutions and survivor families in the construction of familial Holocaust memory and alternative sites of commemoration.