Daughters’ Stories: Family Memory and Generational Amnesia

After World War II, most Bulgarian Jews emigrated legally to Israel. Those who stayed had to take part in the building of socialism and integrate in a monolithic “socialist nation.” Thereby they had to “forget” their ethnic identity (“aided” by the state in various ways) and to become Homo politicus rather than Homo ethnicus. Since 1990, a revival of Jewish identity has begun in Bulgaria. Here I explore how the women of three generations from the same family reinvent their Jewish identity in their life stories. Drawing on this particular case, I suggest an approach to the question of the interplay of individual and collective memory. I focus on family and generation as different types of collectivities influencing individual memories and self-actualizations.