The Holocaust after 70 years: Holocaust survivors in the United States

Over 70 years, there have been different narratives of the Holocaust survivors coming to the United States. Survivors’ stories begin with an event of major historical significance. Difficulties in conceptualizing historical trauma, along with common distortions and myths about Holocaust survivors and their children are examined. This article proposes that it is impossible to discuss the consequences of extreme suffering without consideration of historical meaning and social context with which they are entwined. The evolution of the social representation of the Holocaust and the contradictions in clinical attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described. Attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described.     

Psychoanalysis Traumatized: The Legacy of the Holocaust

Psychoanalysis is a survivor of the Holocaust. It was founded and flourished in central European centers that would be destroyed by the Nazis. A core group of refugees who lived through persecution and exile were instrumental in rebuilding their movement on alien shores. They had no opportunity to mourn the loss of their culture or their leader, Freud, whose death was overshadowed by the cataclysmic upheaval around them. Though its trauma has been dissociated, it is represented in psychoanalytic ideas and enacted in institutions within the context of delayed or incomplete mourning. For example, authoritarianism in psychoanalytic institutions will be explored as a reliving of the trauma of both fascism and exile, and not merely typical group psychology. Further evidence of the impact of dissociated trauma includes the astonishing scotoma for actual events in treatment of Holocaust survivors; the extreme privileging of infantile fantasy over reality, and attention to childhood neurosis at the expense of adult catastrophic events.     

The Holocaust: Moral and Political Lessons

: In many discussions, whether general or academic, the Holocaust is used as a warning of how initially small corruptions can lead to terrible consequences. In particular, it has been seen as illustrating the 'slippery slope'from euthanasia to murder, as showing the consequences of an exaggerated respect for law, and as showing the effects of a corrupt ideology. It is argued that these three points are all somewhat inaccurate, and that 1) the 'slippery slope'occurred much earlier, the so-called 'euthanasia'programme being already murder; 2) it was power rather than law that was excessively respected; and 3) it was the corruption of the sense of moral responsibility that did the real harm, rather than the establishment of any coherent ideology.     

Working with the Holocaust victims psychologically: Some vital cautions

This article traces the evolution of a major psychological organization's involvement with the Holocaust as a fully justified and legitimate topic of concern and of an ongoing commitment to its study and memory. A number of important cautions and requirements are presented for mental health workers who wish to work in the areas encompassed by the Holocaust, including working therapeutically with Survivors of the Holocaust and their children. The special danger of diminishing or trivializing the Holocaust in the course of writing about aspects or elements of it in psychological articles or writings, as has been the case in other kinds of literature, is brought into focus.     

The Montreal Jewish Community and the Holocaust

In 1933 Hitler and the Nazi party came to power in Germany. At the same time, in Canada in general and in Montreal in particular, anti-Semitism was becoming more widespread. The Canadian Jewish Congress, as a result of the growing tension in Europe and the increase in anti-Semitism at home, was reborn in 1934 and became the authoritative voice of Canadian Jewry. During World War II the Nazis embarked on a campaign that resulted in the systematic extermination of millions of Jews. This article focuses on the Montreal Jewish community, its leadership, and their response to the fate of European Jewry. The study pays particular attention to the Canadian Jewish Congress which influenced the outlook of the community and its subsequent actions. As the war progressed, loyalty to Canada and support for the war effort became the overriding issues for the community and the leadership and concern for their European brethren faded into the background.     

Science and practice: The struggle to bridge the gap

Abstract

Ida Sue Baron, Eileen Fennell, and Kytja Voeller (1995). Pediatric Neuropsychology in the Medical Setting. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506345-7. 427 pp. US $57.50     

Against the Indifference Hypothesis: The Holocaust and the Enthusiasts for Murder

This essay takes issue with what is known as the "indifference" hypothesis regarding the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. The Germans' fear of typhus, their perception of the Jew as poisonous, biological matter, "life unworthy of life," created a group state of mind in which many individual Germans, particularly those in the professions, enthusiastically participated in the logistics, machinery, ideology and legitimation of mass murder.