Customizing memory: Number tattoos in contemporary Israeli memory work

This article considers the recent appearance of the Auschwitz prisoner number tattoo on the bodies of Israeli descendants of Holocaust survivors. While media attention granted to this phenomenon is disproportionate to its actual size, it reveals something fundamental about Holocaust representation and commemoration in Israel today. Thinking through the concept of postmemory and its reliance on mediation in this context means that the skin itself can be regarded as a medium passing on memories that have not been directly experienced. The significance of the skin as a locus for commemoration is examined in relation and opposition to other various institutionalized forms of memory practices, to argue that re-tattooing is a form of customizable individual and collective memory. This practice serves as a unique form of bodily memorialization that plays out in the context of new media tools, a socio-political context, and generational succession.