https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.7215
This article analyzes a collection of Martin Pollack’s autobiographical essays entitled Topography of Remembrance. The essays depict the author’s struggle with the memories of his ancestors – the Nazis. Pollack is the son of Gerhard Bast, a Nazi criminal. The analysis focuses on the relationship between a father and son, and the extent to which the son’s narrative was influenced by intergenerational trauma. The theoretical premise of the article relies on the concept of postmemory which assumes that the descendants of perpetrators and victims alike are engulfed by the previous generation’s memories and that the predecessors’ memories are transferred to those who had never participated in the recalled events. The essays create ample opportunities for examining the impacts of the National Socialism doctrine on the lives of those who had not personally experienced it. Pollack’s reflections on memories of the national socialist past are worth exploring because his narrative extends beyond the memory of the loved ones, and it makes attempts to reckon with or overcome Austria’s past. Pollack makes a distinction between the memories of different generations. He describes the memories of his own generation, his grandfather’s, father’s, and his son’s generations to depict the ways in which the past influences the present and causes intergenerational trauma for both individuals and entire nations.
Download files
Citation rules
Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Język Polski
English
Deutsch
