{"id":15966,"date":"2018-05-28T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15966"},"modified":"2018-05-29T09:16:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T16:16:36","slug":"claire-sicherman-explores-healing-through-writing-in-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/05\/28\/claire-sicherman-explores-healing-through-writing-in-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire Sicherman explores healing through writing in new book"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her new book, Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation<\/em>, Salt Spring Island author Claire Sicherman braids her family\u2019s past with the emotional and physical impact it had on her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book is basically my attempt at breaking my family\u2019s silence about the Holocaust,\u201d says Sicherman. \u201cI grew up knowing stories about the Holocaust, but other people\u2019s stories, like Anne Frank or other survivors\u2019 stories. It wasn\u2019t really talked about in my family. I knew my grandparents were the sole surviving members of their families and a couple of snippets of what my grandmother would repeat, and that was about it. So after she passed away in 2014, it was a catalyst to explore my grief because she was the last survivor\u2014my grandfather committed suicide many years ago\u2014so it was a chance to explore my family\u2019s history because I didn\u2019t want to forget. I also wanted a way to talk about it with my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Claire Sicherman will be launching her new book in Victoria on June 10 (photo by Ramona Lam).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With her family\u2019s blessing, Sicherman decided to write about their history. She admits now, however, that the process wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s possible when you write about trauma to not be living it,\u201d says Sicherman. \u201cIt was really hard to be in it and then go to work or pick up my son from school, but, as with anything that you have to go that deep in, you just kind of have to pick yourself up. One of the ways I managed was to just touch into it briefly, allow myself to write for maybe an hour and then go outside or just put myself back in touch with other people, surround myself with the living.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those people is her son, the 11-year-old Ben, an integral part in the memoir.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took in a panel about writing about trauma at a conference I was at and it sort of registered that Ben\u2019s birth trauma\u2026 he wasn\u2019t breathing when he was born,\u201d says Sicherman. \u201cOn the hospital report the word \u2018asphyxiation\u2019 was written on it and the link between that and how most of my ancestors were murdered in that sort of way sort of clicked when I was there, so I started writing to and about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sicherman says trauma is passed down generationally; that, along with the trauma of her son\u2019s birth, became the focus of her story.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the book is me exploring how trauma is carried in the body. I think that\u2019s probably an important piece, as well. For people who are trying to heal from trauma, I think we have to address the body, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is divided down into four smaller pieces, with the last one focusing on this concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cBook four is the journey back into the body,\u201d says Sicherman. \u201cBecause so often with trauma, we can get disconnected from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation<\/em>book launch
\n2 pm Sunday, June 10
\nFree, Congregation Synagogue (1461 Blanshard Street)
\nclairesicherman.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her new book, Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation, Salt Spring Island author Claire Sicherman braids her family\u2019s past with the emotional and physical impact it had on her. \u201cThe book is basically my attempt at breaking my family\u2019s silence about the Holocaust,\u201d says Sicherman. \u201cI grew up knowing stories about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15969,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966\/revisions\/15969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}