Memories, Places, Objects: Memory Transmission in Monica Csango’s Fortielser (2017)

Materiality has emerged as a significant theme in Holocaust literature as well as in Holocaust studies scholarship, highlighting the pivotal role of physical objects. This materiality has been conceptualized in various ways in recent scholarship, including «testimonial objects», «objects of return», and «artifacts of memory». Building on this conceptual framework, the article analyzes the ways in which transgenerational memory transmission is thematized in Monica Csango’s memoir Fortielser. Min jødiske familiehistorie («Concealments. My Jewish Family History», 2017), investigating what memorial functions material places and objects—in particular inherited objects—serve in the transmission and representation of memory within the narrative. The central question the article addresses is: Which places and objects are central to the narrative’s representation of memory, and in what ways do they mediate memory and trauma? The article suggests that postmemory transforms physical objects and places spaces into sites of remembering and mourning, enabling transgenerational continuity and memory transmission in Fortielser. These findings underscore the central role of material and spatial mediums in sustaining intergenerational remembrance, suggesting that inherited artifacts and projected spaces constitute vital modes of memory transmission, or «acts of transfer», within parts of Jewish Norwegian second- and third-generation literature.