Mark Baker's novel The Fiftieth Gate explores the memory of two holocaust survivors, yossl and Genia Baker, with Mark who interprets their memory and uses documented evidence to recreate the history of the holocaust event. The scope and focus of memory only adds to the gand sweep of history and allows different interpretations and greater detail of the event.
In the beginning of the text, Mark Baker tries to examine the holocaust using his parents as primary sources and relating this to facts or evidence as a historian but as Mark tries to 'extract facts' from his fathers past, his father dismisses Mark's efforts, commenting 'fecks, fecks,' the repetition of this phrase through out the chapter and the frustration that the father omits because of his son Mark doubting his memory slowly changes Marks stature from historian to relying on his parents memory. Mark uses his parents memory to explore their history with great detail.
Lone Mark 1 kayaker (surf ski), near Morro Rock ha...
English: Computer memory schema Català: Esquema d...
Lukas uses several television sets to absorb as ma...Marks change in the way he delivers the history of the holocaust is also influenced by the pain he felt through his parents memory,'alone frieghtened .... I was so scared. But my mother said,'run to judenrat' ....saved my life.' The memory of the survivors gives a unique perspective on the holocaust and the intimacy of such personal memories enriches the event.
The biased view of mark and his parents memory does not affect the text as a historical source as it is written from the perspective of jewish survivors as they were the largest victims of the holocaust.