Offspring of concentration camp survivors: The relationship of perceptions of family cohesion and adaptability to levels of ego functioning

Abstract

T HE PRESENT STUDY investigated the family structures of holocaust survivor families. Perceptions of offspring of holocaust survivors served as a meaningful context within which data were collected on a number of key issues. One such issue was the degree of emotional bonding that family members had toward one another and the degree of individual autonomy that family members experienced within the family system. Another important issue concerned the role relationships, power structure, and family roles within survivor families. Finally, present-day levels of offspring functioning were explored in relation to the family structures within holocaust survivor families. The underlying theoretical argument in this study is that the heterogeneity of family structures reflects the individual personality differences of both the survivors and their children. The position advanced here does not seek to minimize the massive trauma suffered by concentration camp survivors, but advocates a more complex interactional view of holocaust families as opposed to the more restricted view advanced by the holocaust literature to date. Much of the work and observations of families of holocaust survivors has been guided by the conceptual hypotheses laid down by Sigal.’ Sigal contends that individuals who experience chronic deprivation or distortions of other kinds in their psychological environment will subsequently develop distortions in their capacities for human relations. These distortions will then hamper the survivor’s ability to form healthy parenting relationships with their children. Finally, Sigal asserts that the subsequent distortions in the parent-child relationship will produce maladaptive behavior in the second generation. These conceptual hypotheses are based on extensive casework with a client population, and caution should be observed with regard to their applicability to a normative population. A number of clinicians have observed that immediately after the war a great number of survivors entered hastily ill-planned marriages. These “marriages of despair”’ disregarded differences in prewar socioeconomic background or any of the ordinary criteria for marriage. In part, Klein3 states, that this was necessary in order to alleviate the intense mourning and separation anxiety the survivors were experiencing. Recreating a family was an act to compensate for their losses, to counter the massive disruption in their lives. and to undo the dehumanization they had experienced.