The Cross-Generational Transmission of Trauma: Ritual and Emotion among Survivors of the Holocaust

Abstract

This article investigates the role of ritual in the cross-generational transmission of trauma among first- and second-generation Holocaust survivors. Based on a qualitative study of thirty-five second-generation survivors, the research examines the extent to which Jewish rituals were maintained in the postwar home and the ways in which the ritual life of the survivors conveyed the traumas of the past through the emotional dynamics of ritual observance. The findings of the research suggest that ritual was an important site of emotional exchange within survivor families and that in adulthood, the children of survivors have engaged in ritual innovation to separate from their traumatized parents. The principles of self-in-relation theory are used to illuminate the social psychological dimensions of ritualized transference across generations.