Study: Holocaust trauma affects grandchildren of survivors

I have just published my own auto-bio about being a second generation survivor entitled "Hardbitten Memories at the blink of an Eye" which tells the relationship of a child growing up in a Shoah Survivors home, born in a DP camp and ending up home in Eretz Yisroel. What makes this story different then Helens book is that I am one of the types she interviewed, but this writing comes from the inner neshuma and guts of the author We children have to speak up now 60 years after to continue our parents legecy, not to to be left to shrinks and others. The book can be gotten t5hru e-mail at dafna333@hotmail.com

I have been wondering how the Jews would keep the holohoax myth alive once all the "Holocaust Survivors" (seems to be lots of them) died from old age. Well it would seem I have my answer. Looks like we know where the next crop of “Holocaust Victims” will be springing up from. I’m sure that Jews will soon find that this “trauma” will effect the next 20 generations of Jews just the same. The world will be full of “Holocaust Victims” 200 years from now no doubt. (ROLLS EYES)

Yes, there is some kind of generational memory, not only at unconciouss levels. It's Easy to hate and difficult to let go. I say no to both of them, We are supposed to never forget. And off course are questions never to be answered the only thing, i can think of, is that must serve as motivation to do Tzavah, and make our souls stronger, without loosing the tenderness and love. Regards From Argentina AM ISRAEL HI!

Just thinking about explaining the Shoah to my sons as they get older depresses me and upsets me. How can I explain such evil? I can't even make sense of it myself and then I have to try to make sense of it for my innocent children. That alone opens the 70+ year old wound every time the subject comes up. Akso, I am a history teacher and every year i have trouble explainging the WHY part of Nazi atrocities....anyone have any suggestions?

of relatives being thrown into gas ovens anso you cant know the pain.

Maybe if the parents would get over it so would the kids. You think?

I would be interested to see how these figures compare in other countries, where the trauma of the holocaust (may) play a smaller role in defining Jewish identity and rhetorically (or otherwise) justifying the status and actions of the community. More provocatively, the question is, whether Israeli society can be thought to be responsible for some of this. Certainly not for the holocuast, but for their (mis)appropriation of the holocaust history. Perhaps the constant deployment of holocaust and nazi rhetoric are preventing third generation survivors from working through the trauma. (It is needed by the state.) I'm a third generation survivor and frankly, I don't have these issues, neither do many of my friends.

Thank you for this article. The book mentionned above refers to the same topic. Very interesting.

I don't agree with what the people at your work said to you. The Shoah is part of your history. It should be remembered. It should be remembered as a part of world history, and we should all learn from it to stop any events like it happening again. The problem, I think, for those of us who didn't have family in it, is that we sometimes feel that the experience has so colored the vision of those that did live this tragedy, that it is hard for them to see the current world and respond appropriately. But, all things come in due time. I hope healing for that families that did live through the Holocaust. Have you by chance read anything by Wendy Pearlman. She wrote a book called Occupied Voices. Part of it addresses her upbringing with Shoah stories. Part of it led her to eventual work. It was interesting.

Sure let's understand the pain of the Jews. And the Palestinians,Kurds, Armenians, South Africans and currently the Iraqi's - all of whom who have suffered as nations.

And have the world conveniently forget about what happened to one nation when another was granted a homeland? I don't think so. I know Israeli's are irked by the fact that instead of the Palestinians simply going away and fading into the mist, they remain very much on the world map! Sorry Margie - there is more to come!

"why are you not asking for compensation...." We are asking to be compensated for a lost nation - not for some wealthy individuals who happen to have had Swiss Bank Accounts and valuable works of art! Thousands of simple people who lost their livlihoods, their identity and complete way of life - transported from rural villages to refugee camps. Yes, I think we ARE asking for compensation...!

This study was done in Israel on Israelis by an Israeli. There is no denying that suffering is experience the world over due to wars and political disagreements, but lets get the facts straight. These Holocaust survivors began their life over again with nothing and built the State of Israel. You under 60 year olds wouldnt have an inkling of how to survive under these conditions. The Palestinians better look to their leaders and see what they have done for them, except instill hate and terrorism in their people - namely Yassir Arafact, the first terrorist together with the hijacker Leila Kalid who still lives in Gaza. The Hatemongers need to get their facts straight and go back to the beginning of Independence of Israel. If the Palestinians had got to work and began cultivating the land, maybe they would be experiencing the same level of living as the Israelis. Stop hating and bitching.

To those saying "not just the Jews" let me remeind you that this study was conducted soley on Israelis. And of course survivrs in Israel are Jews. Let us understand their pain. These survivors and their generations have made Israel the wonderful place that it is.

Interesting: From about age seven I was told about the Shoah by my parents and carry it with me every day. Recently I was at a meeting of the 'Boycott Israel' National Union of Journalists branch in London and one member told me, 'it's time you people got the Holocaust out of your system' and then when I said this was not possible for my generation, another one said 'You have a chip on your shoulder about the Holocaust.' I think the trauma of being raised on a diet of the Shoah narrative can be very harrowing indeed and is unique to my and the next generation.

Without mixing up the Holocaust and the Naqba, both deserve academic and policy studies. When the Pals eventually get their act together, and let-up on condemning and hating, they too will establish their own institutions and carry out their own studies. How one longs for that day.... It would be in the best interests of both our nations.

Many things in Israeli society- aggession, distrust of outsiders, paranoia, lack of social formalities between the young and elderly or between the sexes--are characteristic of untreated societal post-traumatic stress, and these manifest themselves in many ways: belief that only Israelis are right, even when in diametrical opposition to world opion, distrust of the U.N. and E.U., the paranoid belief that Palestinians wish to see Jews in the sea etc. It may not be too late to treat this case of PSD, but it will certainly take a lot of work.

Those who are begging and whining are the poor palestinian that your stupid chiefs keep in this situation, stop comparing the holocaust with the situation the palestinians are in.Your hate makes you blind

Healing will come about when we all (Jews and Palestinians) recognize that we are each other's shadow. We pain, they pain -- its time to heal. Just like Israel and Esau. Enough. We are more alike than we are willing to acknowledge. Sharing and acknowledging each other's pain can overcome. Otherwise, we are forever in a ridiculous cycle where you say Deir Yassin, I say Hebron in the 1920s...you say Islamic Jihad terrorist and I say Stern Gang terrorist. Genug! Genug! Genug! My grandma died in Auschwitz. I can relate to the pain and anger felt by someone who's grandmother died at Deir Yassin. Because its like my pain and trauma, too.

Although the Jews, gays, gypsies and retards suffered the most during WW2, don't forget about the 'normal' citizens who nearly starved to death, like my mother and her family who lived in the cities in Holland. The people in the country had enough food to keep them from starving, but not city people who risked their lives to get some veggies or even flower bulbs from the fields. My mom's family ate their cat and dog in the end to survive and had a nightmare scenery puberty which gave me a scar or two when growing up, listening to her horror stories, her uncle was hung in city square and they were forced to watch him choke, all he did was trying to find food for his sick children after curfew time. There are so many horror stories from the non-Jews too, also in Poland and Russia, they suffered terribly. A global study should be performed.

You stupid and pathetic zionist beggers: this is clearly a new industry that you have set up for your own lumpens. Have you no idea of what the Palestinian children are suffering these days from your own gestapo dealings? However, I understand very well that white-fingered zionists are not workers, and they choose to be paid in guilty shekels for their own generational laziness. How many shekels do you have to pay out for your own filthy sins? Do stop begging and do start paying. Oof, you zionist generational beggers do quite make me quite sick!

Why only in Israel? My family who lived in the UK suffered close losses on both sides. My childhood was haunted by the stories of my parents and particularly my schooldays during the 50's and 60's about what happened to their siblings who lived in Nazi ocupied europe. Never wishing to be percieved as a victim there were many fights with taunting schoolmates which left a permanent scar on my psyche. What happened to Jews during the holocaust, particularly with the vile anti semitic poison and images of rats in sewers pumped out by Goebels and his henchmen never ended after the war but left an open psychological wound wich is still present to this day. If children of survivors were not told about what happened perhaps they would be better off. But on the other hand not knowing the truth may make matters worse, It was a dilema for parents of that generation.

Whose decision was this? Please read this article about what happened to refugees all over the world and decide why it is just the Palestinians and nobody else out of hundreds of millions who are still, sixty years later, in limbo http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009518.shtml

first of all 88 families is a very small sample, restricting it to middle class makes the study even less useful. secondly, every other generation so far in every country has lived through wars, disasters etc - basically the entire world has 3rd generation kids who are traumatized by their grandparents or parents stories about war, destruction etc. why singling out Israelies again?

As you believe, that the Palestinian situation is a consequence of the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany, why are you not asking for compensations? After all, the Palestinians and Nazi Germany were allies and Palestinian-German symbiosis continued thereafter, think about the collaboration at Entebbe, where young Germans carried out the selection of Jewish passengers for their Palestinian friends.

I am sure the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are traumatised. But so are the grandchildren of palestinians who lost their homes and livlihoods as an indirect result of the Holocaust. So far the world has not created a homeland for them as it has for the Jews. They were born and still live in refugee camps.

At least, not of glass any more brittle than that the rest of us are made from. The valorisation of these people is a political and financial racket. I hope people don't think I am being 'hit-and-run' with these comments, because I don't usually come back to the threads to check for answers. You can always come to my blog and insult me there (naqniq wordpress com).