An Estate of Memory Discussion Questions for Tuesday 30 March

1. On page 234, Tola comes across a group of "old-timers" who were among the original prisoners of the camp, and they relate a legend of a pregnant woman who was not punished when she gave birth in the camp. Tola is conflicted by the legend's possibility, and she fears "what soon might be demanded of her" (235). How do you interpret Tola's apprehension? What moral dilemma does Aurelia Katz's pregnancy indicate to Tola and the others?

2. Flashbacks and interrupted narrative progression are important throughout the novel. In the afterword, Ruth Angress notes that these characteristics are central to the psychological focus of the novel. How do flashbacks and interruptions in chronology and perception relate the characters' psychological progression? How do they reveal the moral dilemmas and importance of human relationships to the four womens' survival?

3. How does the family network the women create develop and change over time through the end of the novel? How does it help the women cope and comfort themselves in the face of extreme degradation?

4. Finally, how is this fiction representation different from and similar to the representations we have read and viewed this semester? Lawrence Langer claimed that representing the Holocaust carries with a burden to which writers of other historically-based fiction are not usually subject. How does Ilona Karmel's novel illustrate this point?