Resistance against NS and its intergenerational transmission in Austrian families

Firstly, the present research project is interested in intergenerational forms of transmission of acts of resistance against National Socialism and connected experiences, and secondly in a methodical and methodological combination of the approaches of biographical case reconstruction (Rosenthal 1995) and image analysis (Breckner 2010). Research on descendants of victims or survivors of the Shoah as well as on descendants of collaborators and perpetrators shows that the experience of (great-)grandparents and parents during National Socialism has direct consequences for the psychological development of their descendants, not least for their structures of action and biographical developments. The directive research questions on the effects of the experience of (great- )grandparents/parents on the lives of their grandchildren/children as well as the structures of action they develop will be asked for the first time concerning acts and experiences of resistance. The methodical baseline is biographical case reconstruction and analysis of the inter- and intra-generational dialogue. I want to examine what is remembered how and thus also transmitted, and how the past influences the biographical development of descendants. A particular focus will be the fact that the majority of those who have acted out resistance and were able to transmit their own experience orally are not available as interlocutors any more. Thus the importance of other forms of memory increases, in particular of photographs, as they visually present familial historic legacies. Photographs are a medium along which the past and the present, and thus family and social issues, can be examined; they point to the experience and the structures of meaning and significance connected to it. Directive research questions in this context are: How are (great-)grandparents and parents remembered in photographs? What meaning do photographs have in the transmission of family history to following generations? Are there differences to oral family dialogue? The aim of the research is to obtain a diversity of perspectives on inter- and intra-generational transmission processes by combining biographical case reconstruction with the analysis of family conversations and the analysis of photographs. Here the focal point is the systematic combination of biographical case reconstruction with the analysis of photographs.

The intergenerational, biographical-analytical research has investigated intergenerational transmission structures of experience and actions of resistance against National Socialism. The results base on biographical-narrative interviews and private photographs and show that the transmission of experience of resistance on biographies of descendants have to be seen in connection to the existence of collective memories of we-groups, namely organisations of victims and resistance fighters. These groups have been founded after 1945 and have developed collective memories, which pay tribute to resistance, define it as political and locate it historically. These collective memories provide a counter-memory to the national (Austrian) memory, which conceals and marginalises resistance. Access to these organisations is regulated by the political and/or organisational affiliation to the resistance. The descendants who have an access to a we-group refer to their familys past positively and have the opportunity to embed their biography in it. The biographical structures of action and of structures of remembering are characterised by preserving and communicating the political significance of resistance. Political orientation and belonging are essential aspects of the biographical course. Those descendants who have no access due to the fact that the resistance does not have a distinct political and organisational affiliation have difficulties to embed their biography in the familys resistance past. The national memory and its concealing and marginalising view on resistance has a stronger impact on the intergenerational memory process and on biographical structures of action. The latter are characterised by the search of we-groups and family structures are divided. Mobility and education are familial and biographical structures of actions. The results highlight the essential significance of collective memories and of belonging to we-groups for intergenerational memory processes as well as for biographical structures of action. They refer to the need to include the constellation of collective memories, which are permeated by power structures, for understanding of intergenerational transmission processes of experiences of resistance and persecution. The results give deep insight in the social dynamics of the Austrian society concerning the aftermath of the NS period.