Between remembering tragedies and the tragedy of forgetting : the search for truth in Martin Pollack’s essays

The following article focuses on the analysis of Martin Pollack’s essays in the context of postmemory and the question of after-war generation’s approach towards their parent’s past. The authoress introduces selected Pollack’s works that center around the writer’s discovery of his (unknown and barely remembered) father’s Nazi past and describe Pollack’s confrontation with his painful family history. As a member of so-called second generation, Pollack feels a constant connection to the trauma of war and - as a child of a perpetrator - he feels responsible for the pain that his father caused. The authoress analyses Pollack’s essays (referencing, among others, the studies of Marianne Hirsch, Dori Laub and Erin McGlothlin) showing how his personal story is an inspiration for a debate about the importance of the historical truth and the power of remembering.