We Used to Dream of Freedom by Sam Chaiton

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A Memoir of Family, the Holocaust, and the Stories We Don’t Tell

A child of Holocaust survivors grapples with his parents’ untold stories and their profound effect on the course of his extraordinary life.

Growing up in Toronto, Sam Chaiton and his brothers knew their parents had been prisoners in Bergen-Belsen. But what their parents wouldn’t share about their history ― including the fact they had also been in Auschwitz ― ended up shaping their children’s lives.

We Used to Dream of Freedom explores what a family is or could be; the psychology of survivors and the impact of survivor silence on their family; and the responsibility of second generations from traumatized communities to share knowledge from their own histories to help alleviate the suffering of others. Irreverent, moving, and tragic, often all at once, at its heart it is a story of a man who disappeared on his family, his quest to understand why he had to leave, and the long-overdue discovery about his parents that brought him back.

Year first published: 2024