Transmission of Collective Memory and Jewish Identity in Post-War Jewish Generations through War Souvenirs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think that there are some really interesting ideas and results in this paper, and I really liked some of the discussion around interviewee comments.  I also liked the graphs that showed different approaches to material culture as heritage.  However, the methodology still needs some work - size of samples is still lacking or not clear in places and I think there needs to be a bit more discussion about self-identification as Jewish or of Jewish descent.  I do no understand the bit about interviews with Jewish authorities on page 3 - is this part of your wider PhD?  if so, you need to be very careful about separating out what is PhD methodology and what is relevant to this paper.  On page 6 I found the very brief mention of national history as previously being one, and cohesive and the situation today as different, rather naive - this may be because you know what you mean, but you just need a bit more explanation here.  Also be careful about judgements such as 'seemingly worthless' poor quality photographs (page 7); the value of anything varies on context and eye of the beholder.  Page 8: not sure what you mean in the section from line 316-321 - this could do with a bit more explanation.  Likewise on page 8, I am not sure what the section on Ruth Gruber's work adds or is meant to tell us.  Page 9, line 364-5 - really not clear what the Baudrillard point is - needs further explanation.  

overall, I would like some more attention to structure, and I suggest you remove the interwoven theory and keep this for your interepretation/discussion section.  it often feels under-explained and under-explored, so a bit of a re-think here might help.  

i also think you will find it easier to shape the body of this paper if you can being with a fairly simple question or research objective around memory and place and generations removed; the role of heirlooms in memory or similar.  If I suggest that you aim to keep things simple it might sound patronising, and I apologies for that - but often simple allows you to explore one key issue in more depth.  You have some great ideas and some great material, so let them shine out.  

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Very interesting paper and important results regarding the types of objects given significance, the cross-generational differences in attitudes and practices, and what is and is not remembered.

Reference to Paul Connerton's 2008 Seven types of forgetting (Memory Studies 1.1, 59-72) might be useful. Also, perhaps a table that shows the number of male/female, generation and country respondents would be useful to show the sample distribution across these. But neither are essential.

Just some copy editing - a few errors still in the text and in the references (e.g. footnote 1 partly repeated)

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I am writing to react on your beneficial comments. I have undergone my work to our official native speaker translator and she checked out my work again and I accepted all her changes. I also used your suggested bibliography in this meaning:

Page 12, 462-469

Paul Connerton refers to this behavior as “forgetting humiliated silence”. It is manifest in a widespread pattern of behavior in afflicted postwar Jewish societies and it is rather astonishing because acts of humiliation are very difficult to forget. Postwar Jewish generations faced the collusive silence brought on by a particular kind of collective shame. What is ironic is that Germans were confronted with similar conditions once Nazi Germany was defeated after the war. Millions of homeless and utterly lethargic people were wandering about amidst the ruins. Like the Jews, they had a great desire both to forget and to keep memories alive [34] (p. 67).

Regarding to your last remarks: I am planning to make more profound research in this field where I would separate gender, ethnicity, nationality, religiosity etc., but I need much bigger sample of respondents. That would allow me to come up with more reasonable and precise results. This research resulted from my PhD work rather unpredictably and it is very striking for my further work.

Thank you very much for your interesting points and remarks. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

thank you for making further changes.

And as a young researcher, well done on producing something that is so interesting and thoughtful.  I am now happy to recommend that this paper is published.  

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My suggestion is to make proper references to the cited articles and not to make incorrect borrowings from articles of collegues. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I think this is a really interesting paper, and the research being carried out is likely to be of great interest to readers.  There are places where I think a little more explanation, clarity and context would really help, and I will note these below.  

lines 37-39 - a little more explanation here around what you mean by Jewish cultural heritage and religious cultural heritage

lines 69-70 - more detail and explanation needed here 

line 77 - why is this ironic?

line 82 - what do you mean by facts on the ground? 

lines 96-7 - can you give e.g.s?

line 98 - quotidian rather than plainest?

line 104 onwards - massive idea, perhaps needs more on this topic

line 111 - yes, I like this about the postwar generation and think this could be much clearer much earlier in your paper - that this is what you are dealing with

line 141-2 - do you know these reasons, or some of them?

lines 143-146 - under-explained

lines 153-157 - more on this would be good, more context of the interview and interviewee

lines 159-163 - more explanation for non-Jewish readers please - more context in general for the interviews would be good

line 188 onwards - really interesting - I can imagine huge potential for future work around digital memories

lines 214-216 - expand, explain, and relate more to methods etc

line 220 - what do you mean by submitted case study?

section 6 is a bit disjointed - feels like slightly random bits all put together, so perhaps think about some fairly major revisions here: what is the section about? what do need to include in the way of original research here?  and then give it all context. 

line 227 onwards - what is the interviewee context here?

paragraph starting on line 234 - more on this, more background and context, and link more closely to your overall research aims

paragraph starting on line 245 - this is all your own original research?  if so, really great - just make it clearer and give more context

line 262 - explain Mezuzah please - not all your readers will be Jewish or have this kind of knowledge

I think worth explaining at the beginning that this is part of your PhD research.  Overall I think you need to make sure you are presenting more of a coherent narrative and moving us on from a starting point to an end point via your very interesting results.  Make sure that every section is coherent in itself and aim for a little more consistency around how you present interview results (name of interviewee, background, location etc etc).  

I thought the results around the different generations was fascinating.  More on this?  

looking forward to seeing your next publications and results when you finish your PhD.