The Body as Memory: Breast Cancer and the Holocaust in Women’s Art

Abstract

The Holocaust is a living trauma in the individual and collective body. Studies show that this trauma threatens to be reawakened when a new and traumatic experience, such as illness, emerges. The two traumas bring to the fore the experiences of death, pain, bodily injury, fear of losing control, and social rejection. This article examines the manifestation of this phenomenon in art through the works of three Jewish artists with autobiographical connections to the Holocaust who experienced breast cancer: the late Holocaust survivor Alina Szapocznikow, Israeli artist Anat Massad and English artist Lorna Brunstein, daughters of survivors. All three matured alongside the rise and development of feminist art, and their works address subjects such as femininity and race and tell their stories through their bodies and the traumas of breast cancer and the Holocaust, transmitting memory, working through trauma, and making their voices heard.