Abstract:

This essay focuses on the post-Holocaust, Israeli life of five female narrators of Hungarian origin as expressed in their inclusive life histories. A close reading of the later period in the life histories of the five women exposes how they experienced and view their post-Holocaust life as Holocaust survivors and new immigrants in a newly founded State. The women's narratives of finding housing, work, and starting new families show that despite practical hardship they look back on it all with humor, acceptance, and optimism. The women's narratives about the recurrence of Holocaust-related bad memories, nightmares, fears, and worries illustrate that the past is always present and shakes the stability of their post-Holocaust, seemingly rehabilitated lives. This instability or proneness to belated agony is even stronger for two women, who embark on journeys to their past Hungarian hometowns (accompanied by their husbands, likewise of Hungarian origin). The hometown visit narratives are compelling, bothering, and carry a nightmarish quality. Seen against the background of the five women's former Hungarian lives and identity, the narratives of emigration, remembering, and re-visiting clarify that all these experiences are shadowed by the women's Holocaust experiences. Yet, while their later lives offer them some consolation, the memory of the Nazi camps as that of the Hungarian scenes/sites of deportation to Auschwitz, are forever painful and poignant.

Keywords: