Life gained – identity lost – Untold stories from the second- and third generation Holocaust survivors
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Abstract
This study focused on the families of first-generation Holocaust survivors who arrived in Sweden after World War II, hid, repressed their Jewish identities, and did not transmit their cultural heritage to their children. They raised their children as Swedish. This study was aimed at examining the experiences of 20 second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors with a non-Jewish upbringing. The results showed that the reasons why the first generation concealed their history and identity were unclear. In certain cases, their identity was hidden out of fear of being identified as Jewish and becoming the object of hate and harassment. The reason for concealing their identities has become a part of postmemory work among the study participants and is important in understanding their past. This study shows that the second and third generations also tend to hide their Jewish identity out of fear of being the target of hate.
Topics
Holocaust Survivors Holocaust Survivors: Children of Holocaust Survivors: Grandchildren of Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial Jewish Identity Oral History and Biography Interviews
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Geographic Coverage
Copyright Info
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
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Volume/Issue
55(4)
Page Number / Article Number
322-335
DOI
Bibliographic Information
Life gained – identity lost – Untold stories from the second- and third generation Holocaust survivors. 2025: 322-335. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1080/00207659.2024.2440996
