Children of Survivors

Abstract

It is difficult for analysts to examine the effects of the holocaust on those who experienced it and on those of their children born during or after the war. It was hoped that our workshop might examine the psychic condition of children of survivors and establish the specific effects of growing up with survivor-parents. A review of past studies of survivors and their children indicates that the effects of overwhelming psychic trauma may not be readily visible for long periods, but that unresolved parental conflicts can affect the parent-child relationship. 'Ihe survivor shares the holocaust experience with the child, makes it a shared "secret," which is often denied or symbolically disguised; the child participates in the denial or the symbolic reworking of the triumph of survival.Formal clinical presentations included the analysis of a boy whose father had fled the Nazis. Partly as a result of his experience, the father was markedly depressed. In consequence, the patient experienced serious difficulties in identifying with his father and resolving his oedipal conflicts. The boy also had phobic symptoms Concerning travel and strange places, which were connected with his ideas about his father's escape. His belief that his father had fled the Nazis in panic turned out to represent a projection of the boy's oedipal fear of capture and retaliation. It was this unconscious fear that led the boy to experience fear of traveling. Only after completion of his analysis did he ascertain the facts concerning his father's orderly migration to the United States.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Historical Trauma Among American Indian People

“…Parents who were Holocaust survivors have been reported to have high expectations of their children (Klein, 1973;Sonneberg, 1974), difficulties rearing adolescent children because of their own adolescent experiences (Krell, 1982), problems with parentchild boundaries leading to overcontrol (Barocas & Barocas, 1980), problems with communication (Trossman, 1968), and problems expressing and moderating affect (Nadler, Kav-Venaki, & Gleitman, 1985). For their part, first generation offspring have been characterized as overdependent (Barocas & Barocas, 1980), having difficulty expressing emotion, particularly anger (Freyberg, 1980), depressed (Nadler, Kav-Vanaki, & Gleitman, 1985), and experiencing themselves as different or damaged by their parents' experiences (Epstein, 1979).…”

Survivors of the Holocaust and Their Children

“…According to Yafe's story, her mother did not "fulfill her idealized role as provider". 23 Her mother's emotional collapse during and after the war has dominated Yafe's own thoughts on mothering, and as she reveals in her interview, "I am battling, and that's why I am in therapy. Because I want to continue to function.…”

“Enactment” in the Lives and Treatment of Holocaust Survivors’ Offspring

“…For children of survivors, there is no memory of a time in which the Holocaust did not exist in awareness, whether articulated or unconscious. The remembrance of the Holocaust is constructed out of materials or stories-those spoken aloud, told and retold, as well as those that are silently borne across a bridge of generations (Auerhahn and Laub 1998;Axelrod, Schnipper, and Rau 1978;Barocas and Barocas 1973;Kestenberg 1972;Klein 1971;Laub and Auerhahn 1993;Laufer 1973;Lipkowitz 1973;Rakoff 1966;Sonnenberg 1974). This memory marks those who know it as secret bearers (Micheels 1985).…”