Marianne Hirsch introduces to us a new word, postmemory, in her essay "Holocaust Photographs in Personal and Public Fantasy." Hirsch defines postmemory as when a child of a survivor of a cultural trauma remembers stories because of what their parents told them. Hirsch, being a child of a survivor of the Holocaust, has many postmemories from her parents. Postmemory is like receiving a memory from someone else. It's a memory that you did not witness yourself but were told by someone else, and after hearing their memory you feel as if it happened to you. A postmemory is something you may never get to live. Usually, a postmemory is something that happened that is very traumatic and affected many people.
When you think of a memory you think of something happy or something good that happened. But then what is postmemory? Postmemory is really different, because I think with postmemory most people remember the things that are the most traumatic and that affect the many people. For example, in history class what we are taught and what most of us remember is when people die, not all the good stuff like when they get married or how much money they have to their name. Also, I remember how many people died at war not how many survived. Remembering all the traumatic events are probably not a good thing for some people, because then all they do is worry about it and thinks that it is going to happen to them. For example, after 9/11 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center everyone was so scared to fly because a terrorist could take over their plane. Or some people wouldn't go shopping at the Mega Mall in Minneapolis because that might be the terrorist's next target.
In addition to postmemory being a bad memory, if it involves children it makes the memory seem more traumatic. A person always seems to remember the thing that happen to children and these events tend to stick in your mind a little more than things that happen to adults. I think the reason it is like this is because when you see something bad happen to a child you think that they are so helpless and defenseless so it sticks in your mind a little more.
"Postmemory" describes the relationship that the "generation after" bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before-to experiences they "remember" only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. (Hirsch 2016)
Sometimes people need to hang on to difficult memories because without them they would feel lost. In short, it is better to feel pain than nothing at all. Memories are made up of the highest and lowest points in your life and all the little ones in between. The poet, Li Young Lee writes, “even when it’s painful, memory is sweet.” Even with the good and bad memories, the feeling of belonging overcomes the sense of being lost.
Their memories will give them an ideal live to go towards or a life in which they want to progress from. If an individual chooses to run from the past in which they lived, it is still a component in their life which shaped them to be who it is they became, despite their efforts to repress those memories. Nevertheless, the positive memories of an individual’s past will also shape who they are. Both good and bad memories are able to give an individual a glimpse into their ideal life and a target in which they wish to strive for and memories in which they can aim to prevent from happening once
The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million people of innocent Jewish decent by the Nazi government. The Holocaust was a very tragic time in history due to the idealism that people were taken from their surroundings, persecuted and murdered due to the belief that German Nazi’s were superior to Jews. During the Holocaust, many people suffered both physically and mentally. Tragic events in people’s lives cause a change in their outlook on the world and their future. Due to the tragic events that had taken place being deceased in their lives, survivors often felt that death was a better option than freedom.
The Holocaust was a very impressionable period of time. It not only got media attention during that time, but movies, books, websites, and other forms of media still remember the Holocaust. In Richard Brietman’s article, “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust,” he reviews two books and one movie that were created to reflect the Holocaust (BREITMAN 11). He notes that the two books are very realistic and give historical facts and references to display the evils that were happening in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This shows that the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust have not been forgotten. Through historical writings and records, the harshness and evil that created the Holocaust will live through centuries, so that it may not be repeated again (BREITMAN 14).
“Holding onto past memories helps humans avoid pain in the future. These experiences also help them make better decisions in the future.” (Kenny) Many people advise others to learn from the past and apply those memories so that you can effectively succeed by avoiding repeating past mistakes. On the contrary, people who get too caught up with the past are unable to move on to the future. Memories are the foundation of a person's mindset because what you make of them is entirely up to you.
The Holocaust is considered the largest genocide of our entire world, killing more than 600,000,000 Jewish people during the years of 1933-1945. The memories and history that have filled our lives that occurred during the Holocaust are constantly remembered around the world. Many populations today “think” that constant reminders allow for us to become informed and help diminish the hatred for other races still today. These scholars believe that by remembering the Holocaust, you are able to become knowledgeable and learn how to help prevent this from happening again. Since the Holocaust in a sense impacted the entire human race and history of the world, there are traces of the Holocaust all across our culture today. As I continue to remember the victims of this tragic time period I think of all the ways that our world remembers the Holocaust in today’s society. Through spreading the word, works of media and memorials across the world, I am continually reminded of the tragedy that occurred.
Memories of a traumatic experience can cause a range of different negative mental health issues. After someone has been through a traumatic experience, the memories attached to the event are not like any other normal memory. Hayasaki describes this when she says, “the stronger the emotion attached to a moment, the more likely those parts of our brains involved in memory will become activated.” She explains that the reason traumatic memories hold such powerful reactions is that because, during the time of the events in the memory, there were strong emotions connections to the moment while it was being experienced. The feelings left from the memories that have strong emotions behind them can cause severe mental issues. Those emotions from the memories can hold fears that can affect almost every aspect of the person 's life, causing them not to be able to jump back into their daily life routine. PTSD is the biggest mental problem that comes from those types of memories. Lehrer helps proves this by saying, “PTSD memories remain horribly intense, bleeding into the present and ruining the future.” This shows that the unpleasant emotions that a traumatic memory holds can lead to health problems in the future, such as anxiety, addiction, and, of course, PTSD. Unfortunately, that 's not the worst part; there is not yet a way to cure these memories.
Remember Me? Holocaust Children Talk of Survival. Dir. United States Holocaust Museum. Perf. Nathan Kranowski. Xfinity Video. Comcast. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. http://xfinity.comcast.net/video/remember-me-holocaust-children-talk-of-survival/2085065960
Answers to these questions are complex and incomplete. As an anxiety disorder, PTSD has its foundations in fear and "emotional memory." Like factual memory, emotional memory also involves the storage and recall of events and details; this has been termed the explicit or conscious memory (2). Emotional memory, though, has a second, distinct component. This facet, t...
The film emphasizes on the power of our long-term memory and our episodic memories. Would we be happier if we forgot about traumatic past experiences? Or are our long-term memories so tangled up with emotions and sensations that our brain is unable to truly let go of long-term memories? The film also looks at the difference between explicit and implicit memories.
Earth is consisted of billions of humans who differentiate emotionally, physically, culturally, and mentally. Humans are characterized by their experiences and not everyone has the same experience. Where we are born, how we are raised, and how we interpret life varies. However, once in every few generations, a stressful and disturbing event happens in a child’s life that could have a great impact on him and his future. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that results from experiencing or witnessing an extremely traumatic or tragic event that extends beyond one’s coping capacity. People with PTSD usually have frightening thoughts or vivid memories or dreams of that event. How a child reacts to a tragic event emotionally and mentally completely depends on the child’s mentality. Some people can look past a traumatic event and live life; others can lead to more problems and may lead a criminal life. Posttraumatic Stress disorder affects mainly children causing a possibility of having a violent life in the future.
Recently there has been an extreme debate between "false" vs. "repressed" memories of abuse. A false memory is created when an event that really happened becomes confused with images produced by trying to remember an imagined event. The term false memory syndrome refers to the notion that illusionary and untrue memories of earlier child abuse can be 'recalled' by adult clients during therapy. In an increasingly polarized and emotive debate, extreme positions have been adopted, on one side by those believing that recovered memories nearly always represent actual traumatic experiences, for example, Fredrickson (1992) who argues for a 'repressed memory syndrome' and, on the other side, by those describing a growing epidemic of false memories of abuse which did not occur. (Gardner, 1992; Loftus, 1993; Ofshe & Watters, 1993; Yapko, 1994).
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
“Children do not forget what they have witnessed. Adults hope that if the violence is not talked about, the children’s memories of the event will disappear. However, young children demonstrate a remarkable capacity for recalling traumatic events. Children’s vivid accounts of violent events stand in contrast to parent’s reports that their children did not see the violence or were unaware of it.”