Holocaust Mothers and Daughters: Family, History, and Trauma

Acknowledgments

xvii i could never say it better than Virginia Woolf: “Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how she wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had her good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw her book plain before her and it vanished; acted her people’s parts as she ate; mouthed them as she walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether she was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.” i took the liberty of changing Woolf’s narrating subject into a woman, but as it’s a quote from Orlando, i think she wouldn’t have minded my small manipulation. Even the greatest fool in the world can take on the impossible task of writing a book when help comes to her from the capable hands of wonderful, ingenious people. Many friends, institutions, and specialists have supported, escorted, and protected me in the course of writing this book. Friends: Thank you, Nancy K. Miller and Sandy Petrey (my much loved mentors ), Stan Dubinsky, Drue barker, Michal Rubin (the therapist and the hazzan, the ear and the voice), Laurie Weber, Philippe Lees (the French in my head), Jean-Luc Nancy, Jimmie Killingsworth, Giulia Guarnieri, Debra Rae Cohen, Scott Trafton, Yael Feldman, Paula Feldman, Paweł Piasecki, Sara Schwebel, and William Rivers. Each of you knows what for, and each bit of help meant everything to me. in a subcategory of his own, alone and unmatched, stands Chris holcomb, who channeled all his support, belief, strength, patience, love, encouragement, and trust into me and my project. institutions: This book would not have been possible without the generous support of the University of South Carolina (usc), its Jewish Studies Program, its Department of English Language and Literature, its Women’s and Gender Studies Program, and the Dean’s Office through its commitment to faculty and research. My heartfelt thanks also go to the National Foundation for Jewish ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xviii Acknowledgments Culture, the blanksteen Family Fund for Jewish Studies, the Josephine Abney Fund for Women’s and Gender Studies, the us holocaust Memorial Museum, the Kindertransport Association, and the staff of usc Columbia Cooper Library (Mark Volmer and Amber Gibbs, you are two angels), and usc beaufort North. Specialists: These are the people immoderately familiar “with the rigours of composition” who have believed in the promise of my manuscript and have nurtured it into its present form with their expertise, intelligence, knowledge, preparedness. Thank you, Matthew Seidel and Jeanne Ferris, for your editorial brilliance. A truly special thank-you goes to Phyllis Deutsch, editor-in-chief at the University Press of New England, for her unwavering support, expert guidance, and superlative professionalism (all of the above enveloped in her incomparable warmth). Lastly, i owe a great debt of gratitude to the anonymous readers of my manuscript, whose comments and excellent suggestions pointed me in all the right directions. i am forever indebted to all of you. HOLOCAUST Mothers& Daughters ...