“I can Almost Remember it Now”: Between Personal and Collective Memories of Massive Social Trauma

Holocaust memory reconstruction among bereaved parents

Many studies have examined the trauma bereaved parents experience. The current study focuses on the role that the Holocaust's memory plays in the bereavement experience of parents who have lost a child in a terrorist attack in Israel. Forty bereaved parents were interviewed, using semistructured in-depth interviews. Bereaved parents related to the Holocaust memory as a meaningful experience in their private bereavement. The parents expressed dialectic feelings concerning their loss, personal victimization on the one hand and personal strength, and growth on the other hand. It seems that memory reconstruction of the Holocaust can be used as a coping resource.

Setting the Records Straight: Impossible Memories and the Persistence of Their Phenomenological Qualities

This article offers a new perspective on the study of “recollections” that feel like memories despite the fact that people come to believe they are based on events that could not possibly have happened. Indeed this feeling of remembering can persist long after people change their beliefs. This new perspective emerges from the integration of the work of memory scientists with that of literary writers and historians. Shedding light on assumptions about the strength of these persistence effects, the perspective serves as an effective heuristic for guiding the study of precipitating factors that may lead people to question their recollections in the first place. This integrative perspective also invites a broader consideration of the circumstances giving rise to changes in beliefs as well as resistance to such changes. In the process, this new perspective extends and sharpens theoretical discussions about memory reconstruction processes, highlighting the role of scene making and social interactions.