History is preserved in the memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the imaginations of their children, the so-called Second Generation. Nothing Makes You Free considers the heritage of the descendants of those who faced the horrific lie that adorned the gates of many German concentration camps: "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes You Free"). In the words of this groundbreaking anthology's introduction: "Other kids' parents didn't have numbers on their arms. Other kids' parents didn't talk about massacres as easily as baseball. Other kids' parents loved them, but never gazed at their offspring as miracles in the flesh....How do you deal with this responsibility? Well, if you were a writer, you wrote." Gathered here are writings of both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from farce to fantasy to brutal realism, from an international selection of writers, including Art Spiegelman, Eva Hoffman, Peter Singer, and Carl Friedman.
The authors included in the collection are, in Part 1: Carl Friedman, Eva Hoffman, Victoria Reel, Tammie Bob, Ruth Knafo Setton, Goran Rosenberg, Doron Rabinovici, Alan Kaufman, and Barbara Finkelstein; in Part 2: Savyon Liebrecht, JJ Steinfeld, Thane Rosenbaum, Henri Raczymov, Sonia Pilcer, Lily Brett, Val Vinokurov, Helena Janaczek, Esther Dischereit, and cartoonist Art Spiegelman; and in Part 3: Anne Karpf, Lea Anini, Gila Lustiger, Joseph Skibell, Leon De Winter, Alcina Lubitch Domecq, Mihaly Kornis, Peter Singer, David Albahari, Alain Finkielkraut, and the editor Melvin Jules Bukiet. I recommend that you read the authors' brief bios before starting to read the collected works. Not included are authors like David Lehman and David Curzon, who identify as 2G, but whose parents escaped Vienna in 1939; and the journalist, Joseph Berger (Displaced Persons), since he were born slightly prior to May 7, 1945.
