Holocaust Narratives: Second-Generation “Perpetrators” and the Problem of Liminality

Taking “second-generation perpetrators” to refer to the tension between the guilt of the parents who were actively involved in carrying out Nazi atrocities, and the innocence of their offspring, I posit the oscillation between these positions as a form of liminality. Underpinned by the work of Jacques Derrida and Marianne Hirsch, I discuss this form of liminality in relation to concepts of the ghostly, examining the ways in which Holocaust narratives, literary and cinematic, are haunted by the past. I argue that the family conflicts such second-generation narratives present run the risk of displacing the real victims of the Holocaust.