The Repercussions of the Untold, and Why One Needs to Know

Abstract

The article takes its starting point in more than 160 personal narratives from former migrants, their children, and grandchildren. The testimonies have been collected by cultural-history museums in seven European countries – Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Croatia – and provide a haunting impression of the long-term consequences of war and forced migration for at least three generations. The research aimed at understanding how exactly the Untold and the silence of the first generation – the not-sharing of what they, as time witnesses, experienced – can be sensed by their children and grandchildren and influence their lives, family relations and the surrounding society in a negative way. The findings show that the need for personal and public information by the second and third generations cannot be overestimated and that sharing and getting to know could be a key to more healthy relations between family members and within communities.

Keywords: silence, collective memories, difficult heritage, intergenerational transfer of trauma, long-term consequences of war and migration, three-generational perspective