“Chaiton's fearless and moving memoir is a precious gift to anyone who yearns for a better understanding of intergenerational trauma and the path to true liberation.” — JEANNE BEKER, author, fashion editor, and television personality
A child of Holocaust survivors grapples with his parents’ untold stories and their profound effect on the course of his extraordinary life.
Growing up in Toronto, Sam Chaiton and his brothers knew their parents had been prisoners in Bergen-Belsen. But what their parents wouldn’t share about their history — including the fact they had also been in Auschwitz — ended up shaping their children’s lives.
We Used to Dream of Freedom explores what a family is or could be; the psychology of survivors and the impact of survivor silence on their family; and the responsibility of second generations from traumatized communities to share knowledge from their own histories to help alleviate the suffering of others. Irreverent, moving, and tragic, often all at once, at its heart it is a story of a man who disappeared on his family, his quest to understand why he had to leave, and the long-overdue discovery about his parents that brought him back.
A child of Holocaust survivors grapples with his parents’ untold stories and their profound effect on the course of his extraordinary life.
Growing up in Toronto, Sam Chaiton and his brothers knew their parents had been prisoners in Bergen-Belsen. But what their parents wouldn’t share about their history — including the fact they had also been in Auschwitz — ended up shaping their children’s lives.
We Used to Dream of Freedom explores what a family is or could be; the psychology of survivors and the impact of survivor silence on their family; and the responsibility of second generations from traumatized communities to share knowledge from their own histories to help alleviate the suffering of others. Irreverent, moving, and tragic, often all at once, at its heart it is a story of a man who disappeared on his family, his quest to understand why he had to leave, and the long-overdue discovery about his parents that brought him back.
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- Pages
- 304
- Published in
- Toronto, CA
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Halftitle 7
- Title 9
- Copyright 10
- Dedication 11
- Contents 15
- Prologue 17
- 1 Palmerston 23
- 2 Reading and Bleeding 35
- 3 Place Holders 49
- 4 Enchantments 65
- 5 Disenchantments 77
- 6 Meshuga 95
- 7 Higher Education 107
- 8 Abroad 121
- 9 Waving Free 133
- 10 Beneath the Diamond Sky 143
- 11 Take Me Disappearing 159
- 12 De Profundis 177
- 13 Freeing the Hurricane 193
- 14 Reappearing 207
- 15 The First Law of Thermodynamics 231
- 16 Wierzbnik 249
- 17 Buttonholing the Past 269
- Epilogue 285
- Acknowledgements 291
- Notes 295
- About the Author 301
- Back Cover 304
