Identity Disorders of Second-Generation Holocaust Survivors

Healthy child development is outlined, with particular attention to its crucial element of identity formation. Second-generation Holocaust survivors are saddled with a mission of “carrying the torch” which is inconsistent with normal identity formation. Over and above the normative milestones in acquiring personal identity, children of this generation had particular difficulties establishing a sense of self distinct from family and religious identity. This threatened ego integrity portends potential identity dissonance, disruption of the developmental process, and problems in the adult lives of second-generation survivors. The author’s personal narrative is featured to highlight identity challenges inherent in the life of a “memorial candle.”     

Resilience in Holocaust Survivors: A Study of Defense Mechanisms in Holocaust Narratives

There is extensive literature examining the psychological adaptation of survivors after the Holocaust, including studies of Holocaust narratives (HN). As a measure of psychological adaptation, defense mechanisms (DM) have been studied in various clinical samples, however, to date, not in Holocaust narratives. Using a standardized observer-rated measure, we assessed DM in Holocaust versus pre/post Holocaust narratives (other narratives [ON]) in 20 in-depth survivor interviews. Regarding individual DM, isolation of affect and self-assertion were statistically more frequent in the HN than the ON. High adaptive (mature) level defenses were more frequent in the HNs than the ON. Furthermore, the overall defensive functioning (ODF) was higher in the HN than the ON, contradicting previous findings showing lower defensive functioning in life-threatening situations. Possible explanations include differences in the nature of trauma, the time elapsed between the trauma and the interview, and the specificity of the sample. A qualitative overview with several examples from the narratives are also presented.     

Family Therapy with Families of Holocaust Survivors

This is a clinical review of 7 families of Holocaust survivors who presented for treatment because of problems with an adolescent of the third generation. In 3 cases the problem was anorexia, and the remaining 4 had various clinical presentations, mostly related to separation-individuation issues. A common thread in the narratives that unfolded was that the trauma of the grandparent/survivors had been transmitted across subsequent generations to exercise significant influence on the children and grandchildren. Often, a more recent death or separation crisis had been the catalyst for these difficulties or a trigger that activated the Holocaust trauma. An outline of the therapeutic intervention is presented; it was based on a combination of systemic, structural, strategic, and psychodynamic approaches. It is suggested that open acknowledgment of the transgenerational issues played a critical role in moving families toward a more differentiated outcome.     

Holocaust Survivors in Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish populations

This article reports on Holocaust survivorship amongst Hasidim and ultra-Orthodox groups. The role of the social and religious set in organizing response to the Holocaust is traced. Unique dream phenomena in this group, with brief clinical vignettes, is provided. Often recurring clinical syndromes in the Hasidic Survivor population are discussed. A detailed case history with 'a strategic therapeutic approach is provided, and other treatment considerations are explored. The response possibilities of the system memory in traumatized individuals are outlined, and the centrality of activity-passivity conflicts in Survivors is noted.     

Reconstructing Life Stories of Holocaust Survivors Through Art

This article discusses the late works of two women Holocaust survivors, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz and Ilana Ravek, as seen through the prism of the artistic reconstructing of a life story. Their life stories are expressed in works depicting their Holocaust experiences together with additional “rehabilitation” works illustrating elements such as their childhood before the Holocaust, their establishment of families afterwards, their experience of parenthood and grandparenthood, their successful resettlement in their new countries and their acquisition of a new national identity. Each of these artists' work represents a different approach to the construction of a life story. Nisenthal Krinitz's art works exemplify a linear narrative approach, displaying a sequence of events arranged chronologically in an interrelated plot at whose centre stands her Holocaust story, wrapped by works depicting her life before and afterwards. Ravek's works, which are not limited to her Holocaust experience and its ramifications, demonstrate the second approach, which requires far more active involvement on the part of the viewer. Both artists' life stories express a conflicted ambivalent consciousness, as tragic depictions coexist side by side with images of rehabilitation. The enfolding of the past in the present assists them in their reconstruction of a consecutive identity that has a past, present, and future and enables them to give meaning to their life after their survival.     

The Phenomenology of Posttraumatic Distress in Older Adult Holocaust Survivors

This paper focuses on the effects of the Holocaust on its survivors more than 55 years after the end of World War II. The emphasis is on survivors who were either adults during the Holocaust and who are now over the age of 70, or survivors who were children during the Holocaust and whose age is now between 56 and 70. The central question was: What kinds of posttraumatic phenomena are seen in older adult survivors? After an overview of the field, the situation of survivors in Israel is presented in 2 ways. Results of a survey of survivors who were referred to Amcha, the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust, is provided to give some insight in a clinical population. In addition, 2 case histories of survivors are presented to give a more in-depth perspective. The gap between the data from the questionnaires and the clinical material has relevance for the way in which we conceptualize the late consequences of massive trauma.     

Contaminated Generativity: Holocaust Survivors and Their Children in Germany

This paper addresses the trauma transfer from survivors of the Shoah to the Second Generation in Germany. What does it mean for both generations to beget children after Auschwitz? This necessarily entails perceiving non-Jewish Germans and their way of dealing with history. Survivors cannot live without their memory, nor is it possible for them to conceive of a life unencumbered by this constant “contaminant”. It is not possible to integrate the persecution experiences. On the contrary, decades after liberation, dissociated elements of traumatic memories penetrate everyday experiences, thought, affect and imagination as contaminants. Occasionally, these fragments of persecution experiences, like “encapsulated memories” hidden in crypts suddenly break open and frighten the survivors themselves and even more so the people around them.     

The Effect of Cancer on Suicide among Elderly Holocaust Survivors

Jewish‐Israelis of European origin with cancer have higher suicide rates relative to their counterparts in the general population. We investigated whether this effect results from the high proportion of Holocaust survivors among them, due to vulnerabilities arising from the earlier traumas they sustained. The study was based on all Jewish‐European persons with cancer, 60 years and over, diagnosed in Israel between 1999 and 2007. The standardized incidence ratios were not significantly different between the exposed and nonexposed groups (men: 0.90, 95% CI 0.60–1.19; women: 0.95, 95% CI 0.55–1.37). Past exposure to maximum adversity did not increase the suicide risk among persons with cancer.     

The Holocaust and Its Effects on Survivors: An Overview

The Nazi Holocaust has had continuing and widely reverberating consequences not only for the Jewish survivors but for the world at large. These consequences are detailed, first through a personal account of an Auschwitz survivor, and then through a discussion of the adaptive measures of concentration camp inmates and the long-term psychiatric and psychological effects on survivors and their families. The Survivor or Concentration Camp Syndrome and its relationship to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is described. Indirect effects of the Holocaust have been manifested in various ways, particularly through various levels of psychologic denial displayed by Holocaust criminals and (at least during the early postwar period) by the German public. The Holocaust has had profound effects on the ways the Jewish people regard themselves and are seen by others. Finally, the Holocaust can be seen as offering a kind of paradigmatic signature to the worldview of the end of the 20th century, emphasizing the persistence of evil and the limitations of the idea of progress.     

Observations on the First International Conference on Children of Holocaust Survivors

This first large-scale gathering of children of Holocaust survivors revealed — more from the unanticipated group process of the conference than from its official proceedings — that the second generation seeks a collective identity subordinate neither to the older generation of parents nor of mental-health authorities. Vital moments of tension and reconciliation at the conference between the children's self-help movement (with a sizable membership of young mental-health professionals) and distinguished mental-health experts indicated the legitimacy of intergenerational encounter and the place that it will likely be accorded in future meetings.     

Nonmentalizing States in Early-Childhood Survivors of the Holocaust: Developmental Considerations Regarding Treatment of Child Survivors of Genocidal Atrocities

This paper attempts to coalesce considerations of attachment processes, trauma, mentalization, and nonverbal behavior to underscore some of the developmental and therapeutic challenges demonstrated by older-adult child survivors of the Holocaust, and by implication, other child victims of similar genocidal and traumatic events. Young child survivors experienced not only their own traumatic exposure to violence, harm, and loss, but also the stress-transmission of the adult caregivers who raised them in the years that followed. For some, the horrendous losses, combined with impediments to organizing relationships, and to experiences of predictable and trusted continuities, negatively impact the development of the reflective function, and of interpretive skills basic to successful implicit relatedness and explicit exchanges. "Neutral flow" of bodily tension and shape often signals the freezing accompanying nonmentalizing states. Misalignments in individual personality structure and discordances in interpersonal exchange underscore the need to address fundamental building blocks of relatedness and mentalization in the therapeutic process.     

Theistic Dissonance Among Religious Jewish Holocaust Survivors: A Psychodynamic Perspective

Coining the term theistic dissonance to capture conflicted attitudes and feelings toward God, this article examines faith-based reactions to the Holocaust. The theological weltanschauung of religious Jewish Holocaust survivors is analyzed, with a particular focus on their attempts to reconcile the notion of a benevolent and caring God with their harrowing experience. Basic religious sources and contemporary literature are presented to elucidate the realm of resolutions of theistic dissonance. It is suggested that elements of defense mechanisms are adapted from the emotional into the cognitive realm, and are used by survivors to facilitate respective interpretations of God’s role during the Holocaust. Dissonance resolution is seen as being informed theologically and experientially for these victims who confronted stark challenges to their religious integrity.     

Transformation of Perception of Trauma by Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Group Therapy

Intensive work with child survivors of the Holocaust has made us aware of the clinical importance of understanding the ways children perceive their traumas and the conclusions they draw about how they must live their lives. When these perceptions are transformed congruently with the child's development, the survivors can cope quite well. In this paper we refer to now middle-aged survivors who are still guided by their child perceptions. We will describe how we have used conjoint group psychotherapy to facilitate processes of transformation even at this late stage. The model we provide for trauma work with Holocaust survivors whose traumatization occurred decades ago may well provide tools to reduce future suffering of children who are victims of massive traumatization today.     

Facing the Holocaust in Generations of Families of Survivors: The Case of Partial Relevance and Interpersonal Values

This qualitative study examined the meaning of the Holocaust for 10 Israeli families of survivors in which there are three generations. Thirty-two individuals (24 women, 8 men) were asked to tell their life story. The interviews were analyzed for themes related to PR (Partial Relevance, Bar-On & Selah, 1991) and the interpersonal values held by family members, using SYMLOG methods (Bales, 1999). The first generation agreed on the importance of the value of family teamwork and showed medium to high range PR scores. The second and the third generations showed low, medium, and high range PR scores and tended to value both family teamwork and more non- conforming behavior.     

Facilitated and real trauma in the psychoanalysis of children of Holocaust survivors

The author investigates the effect of retraumatization on the children of Holocaust survivors who have appropriated their parents' trauma through unconscious identification. The author proposes that the working through of the real trauma results in a mitigation of the transmitted trauma in the psychic reality and mobilizes the work of mourning that facilitates the mastery of the real as well as the transmitted trauma. Two case examples are cited as illustration.     

Marital conflicts in the home when children are present versus absent

Characteristics of marital conflict when children (8-16 years) were present versus absent were compared on the basis of 47 mothers' and fathers' reports during a 15-day period. Mothers described 669 incidents of marital conflict, and fathers described 551 incidents. About two thirds of the conflicts occurred in children's absence. Contrary to predictions, conflicts in which children were present were more negative (e.g., more negative emotions, more destructive conflict tactics) and more often about children than were child-absent conflicts. Although parents may attempt to protect children from conflict exposure, children tend to be exposed to a relatively hostile and emotionally negative subset of the marital conflicts that occur in the home.     

Separation-individuation phenomena in adulthood: general concepts and the fifth individuation

The elaboration of separation-individuation theory in the years beyond childhood has been a psychoanalytic focus for several decades. In this paper, the nature of separation-individuation phenomena in adulthood and the terminology and controversy surrounding the use of the terms third, fourth, and fifth individuation are considered first; a detailed elaboration of the concept of the fifth individuation in late adulthood follows.     

Role of third parties in conflicts among Colombian children and early adolescents

Research on children's peer conflicts has focused almost exclusively on the conflicts' main parties. This study investigated the role played by third parties of those conflicts. During interviews, 56 participants (ages 8.0 to 14.5) living in poor and violent neighborhoods in urban Colombia narrated 128 recent conflicts they had with, or observed among, peers. Third parties were present in 73%, and actively involved in 65%, of the conflicts. Most commonly, peers supported one side, teachers used repressive means to promote settlements, and parents took over their children's conflicts. Virtually all the participants mentioned ways of promoting a settlement, but only a fraction used them in actual conflicts. Mediation was absent among peer or adult third parties. Third parties' emotions were less intense than those of main parties, suggesting that it might be easier for bystanders to use cognitive capacities acquired through educational interventions promoting peaceful relationships. Aggr. Behav. 31:40–55, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.