Leaving Auschwitz: Exploring the complexities of third-generation Holocaust narrative

In addressing the issue of narrative ethics and its intersection with writing and remembering the Holocaust from a position of historical and generational distance, this paper probes challenges of third-generation Holocaust representation. For this generation of postmemory, Auschwitz has become the defining marker of Holocaust memory. Even for those whose memories do not directly lead them back there, the collective lens retains this focal point. In demonstrating that memory need not rely on what has become a generic site of pain, I explore options for ‘leaving’ Auschwitz, as it were, while still preserving Holocaust memory continuity. In doing so, I focus on two contrasting examples of Holocaust narrative, authored respectively by Heather Morris and Eduardo Halfon, citing Esther Jilovsky’s parameters of third- generation narrative. I conclude that leaving Auschwitz behind, metaphorically, as well as contextually, need not be the end of Holocaust history, rather a signalling of a different path forward in respect to its ethical, respectful and meaningful preservation.