Die Träume der Abwesenden (Absent dreams)

In her trilogy Judith Herzberg uses subtle humour and a delicate hand to portray a Jewish extended family from Amsterdam between the 1970s and the turn of the millennium. It is a chronicle of emotions and complex relationships. In a cycle that spans three generations there are marriages, children are conceived, couples separate, fall in love with someone new – and get married again.  To outsiders, members of the family and their friends appear to lead the same everyday lives as their contemporaries and when they meet at weddings or funerals, they talk, dance, fall in love and argue. But, quite casually and suddenly, glimpses of wounded souls appear behind this cheerful façade. These are stories of Holocaust survivors and their descendants whose bodies have been deeply marked by the trauma of persecution and Shoah. Freeing oneself from the past appears to be impossible and the images and memories of one generation are passed on to the next like an invisible legacy. Nevertheless, life goes on: they dance, fall in love and get married again while constantly searching for a new beginning.