 | Inheriting the Holocaust: A Second-Generation Memoir Subjects: Jews -- Poland -- Lódz -- History -- 20th century; Holocaust Jewish (1939–1945) -- Poland -- Lódz -- Personal narratives; Holocaust Jewish (1939–1945) -- Influence; Fass Paula S. -- Travel -- Poland; Children of Holocaust survivors -- Biography; In Inheriting the Holocaust , Paula S. Fass explores her own past as the daughter of Holocaust survivors to reflect on the nature of history and memory. Through her parents' experiences and the stories they recounted, Fass defined her engagement as a historian and used these skills to better understand her parents' lives. Fass begins her journey through time and relationships when she travels to Poland and locates birth certificates of the murdered siblings she never knew. That journey to recover her family's story provides her with ever more evidence for the perplexing reliability of memory and its winding path toward historical reconstruction. In the end, Fass recovers parts of her family's history only to discover that Poland is rapidly re-imagining the role Jews played in the nation's past. Paula S. Fass is Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She has written many books and articles, including Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization , and Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America . |
