The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 is referred to as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, in contemporary Palestinian popular memory discourses. In these discourses, the Nakba, for those who were expelled beyond the borders of historic Palestine in 1948, is a signifier not only of the catastrophe of the people in 1948, but also of the ongoing catastrophes of the people as a result of their homeland, historic Palestine, remaining occupied. In Syria, the emergence of these discourses can be traced at least as far back as the Oslo Accords (1993). In response to the threat posed to their right of return by the Palestinian leadership, community activists began creating new memory discourses through activities that emphasised the Nakba, historic Palestine, and the Nakba generation’s memories. The meaning of the Nakba in these memory discourses presupposes that the significations of 1948 have been constant and universal since 1948. In contrast, this paper contends that the notion of 1948-as-catastrophe has always encapsulated competing significations, and has drastically changed since its conceptualisation as such in 1948. Against this backdrop of the Nakba’s shifting and contested significations over time, and the emergence of new popular memory discourses, this paper draws on interviews with first-, second- and third generation refugees in Syria, and explores how they “remember” an event which turned them, their families, and now a fourth generation into refugees. While the Nakba’s dominant signification as the ongoing past/present Palestinian catastrophe remains important and has been accentuated as a result of the war in Syria, the paper argues that the narration and transmission of memories of the Nakba in Palestinian refugee families does not necessarily simply confirm or reproduce popular memory discourses on and understandings of the Nakba. Community members’ own memories and narratives of memory invariably dialogue with, subvert and even contest these discourses, and make the case for the Nakba’s multiple and at times contradictory meanings.