Hiding the Holocaust: Memoir of a Deaf Daughter

From her parents, deaf psychologist Irene W. Leigh learned how quickly safety could be yanked away. Her parents, Jews who barely escaped Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II, tried to shield Leigh from harm, never talking about the horrors they endured, and it was not until recently that she began to discover the truth by uncovering a shocking document. Having rebuilt their lives from scratch, first in England and then in America, Leigh’s parents passed down a legacy of ambition, persistence, and achievement, shaping her resilience in response to bias and discrimination. In this deeply personal memoir, Hiding the Holocaust, Leigh explores how this unspoken history and inherited trauma has informed her personal, familial, academic, and career experiences. Using a lifespan narrative structure focusing on memories, reflections, and recreated dialogue, Leigh narrates the subtle ways in which Holocaust trauma and loss affected not only her parents but also herself as a deaf child, teen, adult, and parent.