Survivor Café

disparate legacies left by the world s humanitarian disasters . . . [Rosner] asks us to look inside ourselves, to learn from the past, to forgive, and to understand the deep connections binding us to our past, our future, and to all other things. Lilith Magazine

Rosner demonstrates a rare blend of scholarly assessment and personal revelation, tempering her singular passion with an encompassing mercy. In this important and vital contribution to the conversation about legacy and responsibility, Rosner distills the magnitude of such burdens and defines the scope of memorialization with an elegance and eloquence that reverberates with both depth and nuance. Booklist (starred review)

A thoughtful, probing meditation on the fragility of memory and the indelible inheritance of pain. Kirkus Reviews

Novelist Rosner (Electric City) shines an unblinking light on the most horrific of 20th century crimes and asks: What is the intergenerational legacy of trauma? . . . She considers art, anniversaries, memorials, and psychotherapy, but the most powerful technique she finds for dealing with trauma is simply telling the story behind it . . . Themes of memory, language, and the bodily imprint of trauma are powerful, as are Rosner s accounts of revisiting Buchenwald with her father . . . Rosner's conclusions that powerful suffering must be communicated before healing can occur and that the most profound of human atrocities must be acknowledged so that their like does not happen again open the door to understanding and, optimistically, show a path to peace. Publishers Weekly

This is the book that clinicians and patients alike have been waiting for. Rosner seamlessly integrates the latest research on intergenerational trauma with her own deeply moving personal account. The result is a true advancement in the field, a must read that is rich, accessible, compelling, and informative. Joshua Simmons, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist and Candidate in Analytic Training at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

Using her experiences as a child of Holocaust survivors, [Rosner] navigates the audience through the realms of epigenetics, psychotherapy, history, and philosophical struggles to bring something unique to the study of trauma . . . These personal recollections provide a dimension that softens some of the most indigestible theories and concepts that we have come to associate with memory, psychology, psychoanalysis, trauma, and history . . . paving the way for future studies. Ellis Spicer, Reviews in History, Institute of Historical Research

In Survivor Cafe , Elizabeth Rosner brilliantly captures both the enormity of war and its enduring aftershocks the devastating legacies for victims, perpetrators, and societies who suffer through and beyond it. A mixture of history, personal narrative, and research, the book expertly documents how atrocities are passed down through generations and how we may find ways to contain this pernicious inheritance. Survivor Cafe is a vital, living document that proves the end of war is far from the end of the battle. Andrew Carroll, editor of the New York Times bestsellers War Letters and Behind the Lines

Using the Holocaust as a focal point, Survivor Cafe renders a profound and unflinching portrait of trauma and the memory of trauma, the consequences of inhumanity, atrocities that do not end with one generation but are inherited as nightmare, memory, and affliction, passed on to the next generation and the next and the next. With vivid stories and brilliant insights, this book must be required reading for those who want to understand not just our collective history but the present moment. Susan Griffin, award winning author of A Chorus of Stones