Queer(ing) Post-Holocaust Experiences: An Oral History with LGBTQ+ Children of Holocaust Survivors

Drawing upon sixteen queer oral history interviews conducted with LGBTQ+ children of Holocaust survivors (COS) in Canada and the United States, this dissertation examines experiences and identities that meet at the intersection of intergenerational trauma and queerness. My project uses oral history to center LGBTQ+ COS’ voices, and to trace how queer sex, desire, and intimacy (SDI) are positioned throughout their narratives. Queer SDI come together with the legacies of the Holocaust in participants’ lives in many compelling and interesting ways. My first body chapter examines the ways sex is spoken about or surrounded by silence as participants narrate the development of their queer identities. Chapter 4 traces the development of LGBTQ+, Jewish, and child of survivor identities alongside feelings of (dis)connection. This chapter examines how queer SDI come together when reconciling multiple intersecting identities, when navigating homophobia and antisemitism, and in the formation of new communities. In Chapter 5, participants are confronted with the destruction of their queer communities with the onset of the AIDS epidemic. I trace how queer SDI are interwoven into their narratives and testimonies of the epidemic. Additionally, I examine how several participants utilized queer SDI as means to explain not having an AIDS narrative to share. Chapter 6 turns to the having and raising of children which I examine through the politics of reproductive futurism. This chapter explores how participants recognized and navigated the pressures that they experienced to have children to ensure the continuation of the Jewish people. Additionally, this chapter explores how queer forms of survival are mobilized as a means of altering how participants fulfilled the reproductive imperative. Chapter 7 examines how queer SDI become central to the narratives of two participants’ roots trip narratives. I examine how queer SDI are a means of finding connection, disrupting heteronormative spaces, and queering Holocaust memory. Overall, my dissertation makes significant contributions to our understandings of how queer SDI are central to the experiences of LGBTQ+ people experiencing intergenerational trauma, how they navigate through the world, and how they bear witness to their experiences.

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