INTRODUCTION

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes the history of Second Generation organizations in Israel and the United States over four generations. It explores the metamorphosis of Second Generation literature over a 30 year period, using his own work as a case study. The book discusses literature dealing with the Second and Third Generations in Hungary, where some members of the Third and even Fourth Generations have begun to investigate the repressed memory of their families. It examines the 2016 film Past Life directed by Avi Nesher as dramatizing the search for the Holocaust diary of survivor Baruch Milch by his two daughters, showing it to be an inquiry into the nature of Holocaust memory. The book also examines how Second Generation Israeli artists use the motif of Arbeit Macht Frei to show reality and meaning in their attempt to deal with the memory of the Holocaust.