Sons of Survivors, Making Peace with Inherited Trauma

The authors of this dual memoir did not live through the trauma of the Holocaust; they inherited it. Whether survivor-parents revealed what they endured or erected barriers of silence, the horrors they experienced permeated the lives of their children.

Aron Hirt-Manheimer and Marty Yura grew up in the close-knit community of Yiddish-speaking refugees in America. After meeting in Los Angeles as high school students, the two became fast friends with much in common—including the fact that they were both conceived in the same displaced persons camp in US-occupied Germany.

This memoir traces their colorful growing-up adventures through fast-paced alternating passages. Though the Holocaust formed the backdrop of their lives, they didn’t talk much about it—until, as older adults, they embraced the imperative to bear witness. They set out to discover everything they could about what happened to their parents and other relatives in Poland during World War II.

For Aron, the most powerful revelations were contained in a nearly forgotten memoir written by his uncle fifty years earlier in Argentina. Marty’s breakthrough came after participating in a Zen Peacemakers immersion retreat on the killing fields of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Navigating through this haunted terrain together, the friends realized that the love they inherited from their parents transcends the trauma. Their joint memoir attests to a legacy of love against hate.