Serving the Past: The Family Stories of Jasminka Domaš as an Example of Postmemory Narratives

The paper analyses a section of the Jewish triptych edited by Jasminka Domaš and comprising Obitelj–Mishpaha, Glasovi, sjećanja, život: Prilog istraživanju povijesti židovskih obitelji and Ako tebe zaboravim: Prilog istraživanju povijesti židovskih obitelji. The focus is on the most recent volume, Ako tebe zaboravim (2018), which presents family accounts from members of the second and third generation of Holocaust survivors, as well as from those who survived the Holocaust as children in Croatia. The paper begins by outlining the defining characteristics of these narratives and the themes recurring throughout the collected stories. These elements allow Croatian narratives to be placed within a transnational model of postmemory storytelling. The article also highlights motifs that demonstrate both the originality of the accounts gathered by Domaš and their dependence on local historical and social contexts. In the final section, the paper provides a detailed analysis of two accounts that stand out from the rest of the volume.