Translating Trauma: The Afterlife of Holocaust Memorial Books.

This article analyzes the contemporary online translation of post-Holocaust Polish Jewish memorial books, known as yizker bikher, originally written primarily in Hebrew and Yiddish to commemorate specific prewar Jewish communities. It explores how these inward-facing, diasporic volumes are being translated—initially by survivor organizations and more recently through crowdsourced online projects—making them accessible to new audiences including Jewish genealogists and Polish non-Jews interested in local history. The study highlights the challenges and consequences of translation, noting that while translators generally preserve the raw emotional content and controversial topics, much cultural nuance, intertextuality, and linguistic specificity are lost or altered, especially when English translations are further translated into Polish. Ultimately, the article emphasizes that despite inevitable losses in cultural idiom, the ongoing translation and digital dissemination of yizker bikher sustain the memory of destroyed communities and enable evolving engagements by diverse contemporary readers.