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‘And I Did Want to Pass’: Reading Canadian Second Generation Holocaust Memoirs as Migration Texts

Abstract One aspect of post-Holocaust Jewish life to which little attention has been paid in the study of Holocaust literature is the experience of migration. This article examines three Canadian Second Generation Holocaust memoirs and their portrayal of migration. Memoirs by Jewish-Canadian authors prove to be particularly beneficial for analyzing aspects of migration because the immigration of Canada’s survivors often took place when their children were old enough to consciously experience it. Lisa Appignanesi’s Losing the Dead (1999), Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation (1989), and Elaine Kalman Naves’s Shoshanna’s Story (2003) all depict the challenges of the arrival to 1950s Canada. The memoirs explore the ways in which the young immigrants cope with dislocation, alienation, and belonging. Against the backdrop of a traumatic family history, they experience different forms of ‘cultural crossings’ - for instance, with regard to language, the immigrant’s body, or religious identity. The focus on migration in Second Generation memoirs highlights the transnational and transcultural rather than merely the transgenerational features of Holocaust memory.