The Holocaust Kid: Stories (Hardcover)

by Sonia Pilcer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
It's not easy being "2G" Second Generation, the child of Holocaust survivors as Zosha, Pilcer's alter ego, tells us in this avowedly autobiographical collection. "While the survivors seem to have the ability to go on with their lives," she writes, "it is their children who spend much of their time, not to mention money, talking to Ph.D.s and MSWs." The 15 stories collected here seek to explore this paradox, though their approach feels a bit simplistic. Zosha, whose parents lived through Auschwitz and labor camps, escaping when she was one year old, chafes under the burden of remembering the Holocaust, even as she feels that it "was all mine... my private cache of suffering and obsession." Pilcer (Teen Angel; Little Darlings) has settled on an important topic, but she works it with a limited palette one involving mostly bitterness, irony and rather cartoonish depictions of supporting characters. In "Remembering 6,000,000" she scorns the New York Jews who open their synagogues for Holocaust Remembrance Day, and in "The Big H" she despises the Christian academics hosting an interfaith Holocaust conference. Her lovers Ludwig, who has a neo-Nazi past, and Uly, a Jewish professor who wears jackboots and salutes "Kraut beer" seem chosen mostly for their ironic value. "Paskudnyak" finds Zosha enraging her parents in the '60s by joining a Latina gang; her wild ways prompt her father to shout, "I should have died in the camps." This collection seems more like a cry for her parents' attention and understanding than a thoughtful examination of their difficult legacy. Just as Holocaust piety can turn into schtick, so can Holocaust irreverence: too often, that's what happens here.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Like the protagonist in this collection of 15 interconnected short stories, Pilcher is the daughter of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Having first addressed many of the issues treated here in her 1990 essay "2G," Pilcher now turns to autobiographical fiction as a way of dealing with the legacy of the past. The stories, set in the 1960s, find Zosha struggling to be free of her parents' memories and expectations. While her mother beseeches her to marry and have grandchildren, Zosha furtively writes stories that reflect her search for an identity of her own. She doesn't want to be merely 2G, the second generation. If her parents survived to be witnesses to the Holocaust, why must she devote her life attesting to their suffering? Ultimately, Zosha marries Avi, another 2G, and they have a son, bringing forth the third generation. Wit and humor interlace with stark realities and unanswerable questions as Zosha looks for a way to celebrate life and remember the past. Provocative fiction, not just for the second generation but for all our collective memories. Karen Simonetti
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Persea Books (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892552611
• ISBN-13: 978-0892552610
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,400,788 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars caustic "Kid" illuminates 2G anguish over Holocaust identity, February 23, 2003

By	Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Holocaust Kid (Paperback)

Sonia Pilcer's important, provocative and caustic "The Holocaust Kid" defies easy categorization. This novel is at once a profound contemplation of the Holocaust, a wickedly twisted view of the responsibilities and burdens of being a child of Holocaust survivors and a withering examination of the American Jewish sanctification of Holocaust memory and its attendant mandate of remembrance. Told through the beleaguered, angry and sarcastic voice of Zosha Palovsky, "The Holocaust Kid" provides important insights into the lives of children of survivors, the 2G generation. Zosha's emotional turmoil, her anger at being held hostage to a defining event she never experiences directly, but only derivatively, and her unflinching insistence on carving out her own identity give the novel its purchase.

The Holocaust looms as the defining nature of Zosha's life. Her mother, the omnipresent and maddeningly oppressive Genia, and her father, laconic and intellectually inquisitive Heniek, provide their daughter with the foundation of Holocaust identity, which so informs Zosha's sensibility. Forever aware of her responsibility as a replacement for so much that was lost, she laments relinquishing her own needs and wants. She is warned that she "must never forget, not even for a moment. Because I lived when so many died."

Yet, what is she to remember? Furtively cleaning her daughter's room, Genia discovers one of Zosha's essays. Zosha examines the Hebrew injunction to remember, zachor. Yet her daughter is confused as to what she is mandated to sanctify. "Remember what? Lives exitnguished?...Childhoods, entire countries and cultures lost?" Zosha recoils at the unfairness of this obligation and the impossible enormity of its requirements. Her father has "numbers," her mother "nightmares;" Zosha is left with their "fierce, anxious love."

"Kid" scrapes against our preconceptions of being a child of survivors. When Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel proclaims that their is a "privileged generation," that 2G children are the "justification" of their parents' will to survive the unspeakable, Pilcer bitterly questions those assumptions. If Zosha's life is so presumably sanctified by memory, why does remembrance bring discomfort and not peace?

The daughter angrily denounces her parents' captivity by memory, their stubborn refusal to let loose and recreate a genuine new life in America. Her parents memories served only to increase pain. Their "tearful retelling of loss" reinforced their captivity to genocide. Zosha bristles with anger at her parents' double standards, their inconsistencies, phony rituals and use of Judaism as a sword raised to compel obedience. Even the Holocaust becomes but the ultimate parental means to subordinate Zosha.

Rejecting their wish that she become "normal, like Daddy and me," Zosha sets sail to discover her own identity. Though competently chronicled, this quest loses its tautness due to the structure of the novel. "Kid" seems to be composed of disparate narrative episodes, and, indeed, many of the chapters have appeared in numerous journals during the past decade. Though not every novel needs to appear seamless, "Kid" suffers from abrupt, disjointed changes in time.

This sole structural criticsm, however, should not dissuade readers from tackling this morbidly fascinating, intellectually provocative and psychologically revealing short novel. "The Holocaust Kid" succeeds on levels which few authors have even attempted to explore. It is an audacious, explosive and, in places, outrageous examination of the impact of the Holocaust on survivors and their children. Its voice is new, fresh and memorable.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting portrayal of the Second Generation experience, June 20, 2001

By	Sharon Leib (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

In The Holocaust Kid, Sonia Pilcer movingly depicts the story of Zosha Palovsky, a child of Holocaust survivors, from the beginning of her life in a German DP (displaced persons) camp, throughout her childhood, turbulent adolescence, and finally, into adulthood. The book is a collection of stories, each one dealing with a different period in Zosha's life, or the lives of her survivor parents.The stories dealing with her parents' experiences in the camps provide the context and background for the atmosphere in which Zosha was raised. As a member of the Second Generation myself, the book has a great deal of meaning for me. However, many of the issues in this book are universal (parent-child relationships, rebellion, etc) and I highly recommmend it to anyone looking for a fascinating read, regardless of their background or experience.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Simply Not That Great, November 22, 2001

By A Customer

I read other people's reviews for this book and thought I would find it very interesting and engaging. I have read a wide variety of other books either about the Holocaust or at least touch upon the subject, and this one just isn't very good. I didn't like any of the characters and only some of the stories have any potential to make me smile, laugh or think very deeply. This is one of those books that is short, so it's easy to read, but the only reason I couldn't put it down is because I was painfully hoping that at some point, it would get better. I read a lot of books and while this one is okay, overall, I would recommend to skip it.