The writings of the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors frequently convey not only the pain their grandparents endured but also the reverberations of trauma in their families.
If there is a pattern in these books, it is often the desire to restore a narrative interrupted by untold stories and geographical dislocation. Two new memoirs record grandchildren’s attempts to grapple with difficult family histories that were shrouded in silence.
Emanuel (Manu) Rosen, the author of “If Anyone Calls, Tell Them I Died,” grew up in Israel and now lives in Menlo Park. It was not until he was a grown man that his mother informed him that her father, who came to Israel as a refugee from Nazi Germany, had committed suicide decades earlier. The cause of death had never been discussed.
