Families after the Holocaust: between the archives and oral history

After the Holocaust, parents and children who had survived the genocide faced significant obstacles to family reunification. Many children with at least one surviving parent were never reclaimed by their families, while others who returned to live with their parents confronted a fractured social uni...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oral history (Colchester) 2018-04, Vol.46 (1), p.42-54
Main Author: Clifford, Rebecca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archives & records
Children
Families & family life
Family reunification
Fractured
Genocide
Holocaust
Oral history
Parents & parenting
Traumatic life events
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Summary:After the Holocaust, parents and children who had survived the genocide faced significant obstacles to family reunification. Many children with at least one surviving parent were never reclaimed by their families, while others who returned to live with their parents confronted a fractured social unit. This article draws on both archival sources and oral history to explore family reunification after the Holocaust, arguing that while archival documents can illustrate the mechanics of reunification, oral history allows us to confront its long-term legacies, revealing the extent to which divided loyalties, traumatic experiences and desperate material conditions broke families apart, even where parents and children managed against the odds to survive.
ISSN:0143-0955