Do Children Cope Better Than Adults with Potentially Traumatic Stress? A 40-Year Follow-Up of Holocaust Survivors

Abstract

Anecdotal reports suggest that child survivors of the Nazi persecution are functioning well as adults. Ratings of their parents by a randomly selected community sample of young adult Ashkenazi Jews on a scale that measured Schizoid, Paranoid, Depressive/Masochistic and Type A/Normal Aggressive symptoms permitted verification of these reports. Among the parents were groups who were children, adolescents, or young adults in 1945, at the end of World War II. Child-survivor parents did not differ from native-born parents on these measures 40 years later, whereas, consistent with the empirical findings of others, survivors who were adolescents or young adults at the end of the war manifested more paranoid and depressive/masochistic symptoms than native-born parents. To explain this possible greater long-term resilience among those who were child survivors, reference is made to later caretakers, endowment, cognitive and social development, and psychodynamics.