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The dynamics of the relationship between Holocaust memory and the memory of Mizrahi displacement illustrates why a nuanced understanding of memory is so important if we are to truly grasp the complex legacies of history. Within the public realm a multidirectional conversation is occurring between remembrances of the Holocaust and Mizrahi displacement. Yet, if Holocaust remembrance has dominated for so long and is unlikely to diminish at any point soon, how should the emergence and public circulation of Mizrahi memoirs within this present space and time be seen? How has the Mizrahi voice been enabled? And why now?

Insight into this specific situation can be gained by using a concept called ‘screen memory’. My use of screen memory draws on Rothberg’s rethinking of Freud’s concept of

254 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 1-29, 309-313.} 255 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 3-4, 16.} 256 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory.}

257 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 11, 16-18, 21-22, 29.} 258 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 11.}

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Deckerinnerungen.259 _{Although the concept has broader application, Freud originally}

developed the idea of screen memory to help understand the unpredictable process of remembrance and forgetting in an individual when someone recalls personal childhood experiences.260 _{Within Freudian psychology, memory is understood at a personal level to be}

“primarily an associative process that works through displacement and substitution”.261 _The

significance and meaning of a screen memory is created through an interpretive network encompassing past experience, present recall, and the relationship between a person’s conscious and subconscious mind.262

Within this system in an individual, a screen memory essentially operates as a type of coping mechanism for difficult experiences or trauma. The screen memory itself is understood as a mundane, comforting or, at the very least, a less confronting memory of an actual event. During the process of personal remembrance, the screen memory is unconsciously substituted as the main focus of recall instead of revealing a more traumatic one. Effectively the screen memory acts as a psychological shield while unconscious processing is still taking place.263 _{When the person is more able to engage directly with the}

past experience, the screen memory recedes and the experience of trauma is able to be realised.264 _{In other words, for each individual there are multiple remembrances held within}

the one mind at different levels of awareness. The coping mechanism of screen memory involves a re-directing of conscious attention before trauma can begin to be comprehended and articulated as part of the therapeutic process towards recovery. As Rothberg describes: Despite its apparent innocence, screen memory stands in or substitutes for a more disturbing or painful memory that it displaces from consciousness . . . The mechanism of screen memory thus illustrates concretely how a kind of forgetting accompanies acts of remembrance, but this kind of forgetting is subject to recall.265

These same dynamics can still be observed if the concept of screen memory is extrapolated from the level of the individual to instead be applied in the context of a collective. The insight that remembrance is intertwined with forgetting and that the appearance of being forgotten does not necessarily equate with loss or permanent erasure is important when

259 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-13. One literal translation is ‘cover memories,’ however Rothberg in}

translating this concept as ‘screen memories’ enables its multilayered aspect to come forth.

260 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-13.} 261 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12.} 262 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13-14.} 263 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-13.} 264 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-16.} 265 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13.}

94 considering the relationship between Holocaust remembrance and Mizrahi memories.266

Paris, for example, observes that in many societies where an injustice or atrocity has occurred and acknowledgement of it has been suppressed, a delay usually occurs before narratives about the past are corrected and become more inclusive.267 _{She proposes that a}

driver for this resurfacing of memories is not only a sense of shame but also the need for justice – personal and social.268 _{Where pasts appear to have been forgotten within public}

attention, they are not actually lost but are retained privately to resurface later. Paris explains that:

ordinary people will remember, even when they are ordered not to . . . the victims – including their children and eventually their grandchildren – will not disappear, although they may be traumatised and cowed for many years . . . Because the experience of having been victimised travels through the generations, carrying calls for justice or revenge or both, victims will necessarily outlast – and outnumber – the leadership that lies about what happened to them or tried to deny their suffering. In the end, their stories are known.269

Some scholars translate Deckerinnerungen as ‘cover memory’ rather than ‘screen memory’.270

While both translations are linguistically correct, each has distinct interpretative implications. A ‘cover memory’ literally obscures and silences – another memory therefore is either exclusively visible or invisible in awareness in absolute terms. Yet the relationship between Mizrahi memoirs and Holocaust remembrance reveals a far more complex and unpredictable picture more aligned with multidirectional memory. Rothberg’s translation as ‘screen memory’ also encompasses the additional processes that occur as part of

Deckerinnerungen that become obfuscated if translated simply as ‘cover memory’.271

Rethinking and understanding Deckerinnerungen as ‘screen memory’ and expanding it to encompass dynamics at the collective level complements the framework of multidirectional memory and both processes are observable in the Mizrahi context. When adapted to the collective level, screen memory encompasses intergroup dynamics between different collective remembrances operating within the same multicultural setting in a multidirectional way. (This parallels the holding of different remembrances within the one person’s mind.) At the societal level, a screen memory can fulfil different roles, sometimes at the same time, and indeed can constitute a particular collective memory.272 _{In this}

266 _{Paris, Long Shadows, 452-455.} 267 _{Paris, Long Shadows, 452-455.} 268 _{Paris, Long Shadows, 452-455.} 269 _{Paris, Long Shadows, 454-455.}

270 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-13.} 271 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 12-14.} 272 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13-14.}

95 context a screen memory can act as the main focus of public attention and discussion. By expanding the dynamics of screen memory to an intergroup application, active remembrance is recognised as occurring concurrently at both highly visible and more ‘hidden’ levels of the public sphere.273 _{In its relationship with other remembrances, a screen}

memory can act as a shield, a surface for projection, an initiator of dialogue, a means of recovery, and prompt of reconfiguration.274 _{So, although attention may appear to be}

exclusively upon the screen memory within public conversations, multicultural society is nevertheless still actively engaged in the processing, negotiating, and working through of different groups’ remembrances until such time as a more broadly cohesive cross-group engagement with a specific remembrance becomes possible.275 _{While exclusion can and}

does occur, it is not the only process happening. The vital element of unpredictability is reintroduced into the mix.276 _{In the event of domination, substitution, silencing, or}

exclusion, recovery and renewed visibility remain a real and achievable outcome for other remembrances when the timing is right.277 _{In the meantime, even reactions against can}

become possible opportunities for articulation of different experiences and perspectives.278

In a powerful example, Rothberg argues that:

this shift in perspective allows us to see that while [some scholars] . . . speak of Holocaust memory as if it blocks memory of slavery and colonialism from view (the model of competitive memory), they actually use the presence of widespread Holocaust consciousness as a platform to articulate a vision of American racism past and present. This interaction of different historical memories illustrates the productive, intercultural dynamic that I call multidirectional memory.279

Although the dynamics might be unpredictable, movement, change, and fluidity are always present. Crucially, as Rothberg has observed:

While screen memory might be understood as involving a conflict of memories, it ultimately more closely resembles a remapping of memory in which links between memories are formed and then redistributed between the conscious and unconscious.280

273 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13-14.} 274 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13.} 275 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory¸ 13-15.} 276 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 11, 18, 21.}

277 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 17; Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 9, 12-13. This is not to say that struggle is}

absent.

278 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 3; Prentice, Devadas, and Johnson, ‘Introduction – Cultural}

Transformations’, ii.

279 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 3.} 280 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 13-14.}

96 The emergence of Mizrahi memoirs is part of an ever present process of multidirectional remapping within and between different collective memories – not only Jewish ones but also those of other diverse groups, cultures, and nations.281 _{Tumblety observes that:}

scholars routinely suggest that it is the scale of destructive violence in the twentieth century that has generated the turn to memory of late: the need to work through trauma, to commemorate mass loss, to bring the perpetrators of genocide to justice, speaks to pervasive and deep-seated psychological and social needs.282

Crucially, Whitlock recognises that autobiography has a role in this because it is “fundamental to the struggle for recognition among individuals and groups, to the constant creation of what it means to be human and the rights that fall from that, and to the ongoing negotiation of imaginary boundaries between ourselves and others”.283 _{As memoir,}

these shifts in remapping can appear rapid, especially given the “compelling and urgent” layer of “lives at risk here and now” as narratives steeped in places of active conflict.284

Whitlock explains that “contemporary life narrative is uniquely shaped by the extensive and unprecedented speed and power of cultural exchanges in the present” as a result of globalisation and transnational movement. Whitlock acknowledges that the concept of globalisation is flawed, but nevertheless is analytically useful when examining contemporary cultural changes.285

In relation to the visibility of Mizrahi remembrances, Holocaust memory may be seen in some ways too as a screen memory – yet so are other national focused narratives in different contexts.286 _{In the face of critics who see Holocaust memory in competitive terms}

as eclipsing the experiences of other groups, Rothberg enables an ethical position of recognising coexistence and interaction rather than exclusively conflict.287 _{Because of the}

sheer horror of the Holocaust and the enormity of its mnemonic legacy (individually and collectively), it is something that has, and will take an incredible amount of time to process. This is not to say that a state of closure will ever be reached, or necessarily should be reached, on it. My own position is one that respects the specificity of each historical event

281 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 14; Tumblety, Memory and History, 5; Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 10.} 282 _{Tumblety, Memory and History, 5.}

283 _{Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 10.} 284 _{Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 8.} 285 _{Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 8.}

286 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 16; Tumblety, History and Memory, 9-10; Fathi, Full Circle. In an Australian}

context, the discourse of ANZAC remembrance both enables and obscures memories of other experiences and frequently shapes the way war veterans tell their stories. Similarly, the discourse of the ‘American Dream’ and collective memory of the struggling yet successful immigrant within Fathi’s memoir is one that he both shapes his story to, and reacts against – yet in both instances his own memories and story is told in relation to this frame.

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and maintains that it is important, for all humanity, to nevertheless engage in conversation

with Holocaust memory as well as those of others. That an upwelling of diverse Mizrahi memories has occurred amongst a multicultural plethora of very different pasts, and the dominance of Jewish history by European experiences, is significant. As Rothberg has observed, “the emergence of memories into the public often takes place through triggers that may at first seem irrelevant or even unseemly”.288