Teaching Holocaust Memory Literature in Higher Education: An Autoethnographic View

Abstract

In this article, I present my personal story as a teacher-educator who participated in a binational (Israeli-German) teaching project that investigated the reading processes of students belonging to the second and third post-Holocaust generations. The students read literary works in Hebrew, German, and other languages written by members of the second and third post-Holocaust generations. My involvement in the project triggered the question of how to represent their experience of reading the literary works, of the teaching processes, and of what I learned from the process. This led to the writing of an autoethnography that accompanied my work as a teacher-educator in this project.

The autoethnographic writing process was significant for my comprehension of the issue of Holocaust memory due to the fact that I am a second-generation Holocaust survivor. While the experience described is important in understanding the processes that are probably undergone by teachers who are second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors, the manner in which the Holocaust ethos is perceived in Israel precludes discussing them.