Hall, Dennis Carmen

Postmemory is an interpretive theory that describes the relationship between the children of Holocaust survivors (Second-generation witnesses) and the trauma suffered by their parents. This thesis extends postmemory in two ways: first, postmemory is extended to include refugees who escaped the Holocaust. Thus, refugee families are situated in the three familial paradigms of Holocaust memory. Second, postmemory is extended to Third-generation witnesses (grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and refugees). Manifestations and representations of postmemory in Third-generation refugee families is demonstrated by authorial narration of photographs in third-generation refugee writer Erika Dreifus's short story collection Quiet Americans.