Memory thieves? Representing dementia in Holocaust literature

This article examines the contemporary phenomenon of fiction and film about Holocaust survivors suffering from dementia. Earlier examples of this kind use dementia to explore the interior states of survivor guilt and the suppression of painful memories. By contrast, twenty-first-century representations convey the passing on of Holocaust memory to the next generation. These individuals, in the role of offspring or carers, act as the investigators and inheritors of a history that either has vanished from the survivor’s memory or appears in the present as if it were still taking place. Such works are expressive of cultural anxiety at the vanishing of the generation of eyewitnesses to the events of the Holocaust yet also act to defuse the unwelcome lessons such witnesses might impart.