Holocaust Survivors Research Articles

The body as a canvas: Memory, tattoos and the Holocaust

This article explores the decision amongst the children and grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors to replicate the concentration camp number of their survivor family member on their own body. The article sheds new light on the complex intergenerational legacy of the Holocaust and on memorial practices. By focusing on the tattoo as a form of memorial practice, the article captures the intersections between the contemporary trend of tattooing and the concentration camp number as the visual symbol of the crimes of the Nazis. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 13 descendants of Holocaust survivors, the article considers motivations for getting the tattoo, conversations with the survivor parent or grandparent about the tattoo (if they were still alive), as well as the design and placement on the body. The decision to replicate the number was a statement about family relationships and was often a way of expressing love, legacy and continuity and pride. Some descendants who replicated the number, which had dehumanised and stigmatised their ancestor, saw it as a way of reclaiming. The tattoo also had a dialogical function, keeping family stories and histories alive as we enter the post-witness era. The sociological analysis is this article shows how personal lives are shaped by memories, as well as secrets and silences, and how they connect with history, relationships and identity. This article contributes to our understanding of the legacy of the Holocaust on families and family relationships and the corporeal impacts across generations.

Aging second-generation Holocaust survivors and well-being: The mediating role of relational attitudes

For many years, clinical case studies that have focused on the intergenerational effects of Holocaust trauma have indicated that second-generation Holocaust survivors (SGHSs) often face relational challenges in their intimate relationships. The relational attitudes of SGHSs during childhood, as well as during adulthood, have been studied. However, only in recent years has this cohort entered the “aging adult” group. In this study, we hypothesized that well-being among Israeli aging SGHSs would be associated with parentification and with specific relational attitudes toward their adult offspring. We examined whether parentification, sense of relational entitlement, pathological concern, and authenticity in relationships mediated the association between family background and well-being. A total of 329 participants (60% SGHSs; 19% men) completed questionnaires tapping retrospective accounts of parentification during childhood, inflated and restricted senses of entitlement, pathological concern, relational authenticity, and subjective well-being. Aging SGHSs reported higher levels of parentification, inflated sense of entitlement toward offspring, pathological concern, lower levels of authenticity, and subjective well-being. The association between family background and subjective well-being was mediated by parentification, inflated sense of relational entitlement, pathological concern, and authenticity. Findings suggest that especially for aging SGHSs, childhood parentification takes a heavy toll on their sense of well-being via the hindering of a balanced sense of relational entitlement and concern and the authentic expression of self.

Narratives of memory and national identity; analyzing agency in contemporary Holocaust memory initiatives

ABSTRACT Constructing narratives of memory has long been acknowledged as a major component of nationalism and nation building. In Israel the memory of the Holocaust is widely seen as constituting one of these major components and is at the core of Israeli national identity. Since the early 2000s, the imminent passing of Holocaust survivors has resulted in an intense preoccupation with the question of the future of this memory. This preoccupation has produced new commemorative initiatives engaging with interactive digital platforms. In our article we explore the role of human agency in successfully conjuring up alternative or forgotten memories that dramatically transform contemporary remembrance landscapes by analyzing two recent commemorative projects in Israel, Zikaron Besalon and Eva’s story. Informed by the understanding of the centrality of temporal orientations to the dynamics of social interaction in our analysis we adopt a temporal framework.

The association between looming cognitive style and posttraumatic stress symptoms: The case of older Holocaust survivors

The looming cognitive style (LCS) refers to a tendency to produce mental illustrations and images of adverse events and potentially threatening situations with perceived accumulating threat and danger. LCS is a well-known cognitive vulnerability for anxiety, nevertheless few studies examined the relationship between LCS and posttraumatic reactions. Among the existing studies, a higher LCS was reported in Holocaust survivors relative to matched comparisons, and directly associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in older Holocaust survivors. The current study aimed to expand the understanding of the relationship between LCS with PTSS in general, and among older Holocaust survivors in particular. Moreover, whether the number of Holocaust experiences encountered by Holocaust survivors moderated this relationship. The sample consisted of 153 older Holocaust survivors (Mage = 82.42, SD = 5.75). Participants were interviewed regarding their background characteristics, PTSS, LCS, and number of Holocaust experiences. Participants reporting higher LCS showed higher PTSS. There was an interaction between LCS and number of Holocaust experiences for predicting PTSS, suggesting that LCS was associated with higher PTSS to a stronger degree among Holocaust survivors who experienced a smaller number of Holocaust experiences. The findings indicate that Holocaust trauma may have influenced the LCS of Holocaust survivors throughout their lives and into old age. The results provide insight for mental health practitioners treating older Holocaust survivors in focusing on reducing schematic processing biases for threat information and anxiety to enhance better mental health for those suffering from posttraumatic stress symptoms.

An Interview with Henry ‘Hank’ Greenspan

ABSTRACT Kobi Kabalek interviews Henry (Hank) Greenspan about his sustained collaborations with Holocaust survivors, his questioning of conventional concepts in the field such as ‘testimony’ and ‘trauma,’ his convictions and strategies as a teacher, and his drive to embody some of what he has learned in playwriting and dramatic performance. Among other provocative assertions, Greenspan suggests that all work in Holocaust Studies is inevitably some version of our own testimony, even though we were not there. That is why scholars must also listen more deeply to each other, interpret collaboratively, and learn together.

The Unity of Subject and Object: Toys of the Holocaust Survivors as Memory Transmitters in Children’s Literature

The Unity of Subject and Object: Toys of the Holocaust Survivors as Memory Transmitters in Children’s Literature

Research in the Service of the Law: Martin Broszat and the Compensation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors from Romania, 1955–65

Research in the Service of the Law: Martin Broszat and the Compensation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors from Romania, 1955–65

From pain to violence and from violence to healing

This article will describe the author's childhood during the Holocaust and postHolocaust years, his subsequent refugee experience in the UK which was both formative and deformative, and his adolescence and adulthood which revealed his susceptibility to further traumatisation. It will include insights and theories derived from thirty years of therapeutic work with Holocaust survivors and survivors of recent social and personal traumatisation, as well as forty years of work as a general practitioner (GP). This article introduces novel theories of psychic organisation including the concept of the psychic guardian function and the deformative effects of trauma. Finally, this article acknowledges how working with trauma survivors has generated unexpected healing in this wounded healer.

Menachem Kaiser’s Quest for Family Heirloom and the Aftermath of Historical Trauma

Menachem Kaiser’s Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure (2021) critiques the generic limitations of the “3G” (third-generation) memoir by pointing to its frequently sentimental tenor and facile epiphanies, perpetuated by the publishing market. Plunder focuses instead on material traces of the past and on Kaiser’s effort to reclaim property left behind by his relatives in Poland. This approach allows Kaiser to address the aftermath of historical trauma without vicariously identifying with Holocaust victims or survivors.

Traumatisme d’après-guerre : confl its mentaux et stratégies discursives. Étude sémio-pragmatique d’Un désir fou de danser d’Élie Wiesel

The question of Holocaust survivors and Jewish identity are at the heart of Elie Wiesel’s fiction and nonfiction, where the author looks to emphasise characters’ psychological struggles with demons of the past. The aim of this paper is to approach A Mad Desire to Dance from a semio-pragmatic point of view in order to examine persuasive strategies which involve readers participating in the narrative discourse and identifying the nature of protagonist’s psychological disorders. The analysis, related to Holocaust studies, shows that the construction of the novel influences readers so that they can sympathize with characters whose personal life is deeply affected by a post-war trauma.

Mental Health in the Shadow of the Holocaust: Psychological Interventions in Jewish Displaced Persons Camps

This study interrogates the historical methodology that underpins research undertaken by historians writing about mental health in the postwar world. I question their near-exclusive reliance on medical elites’ studies, correspondence and reports, and call instead for a closer analysis of the experiences of front-line workers, including social workers and nurses, to better understand the social, political, cultural, economic and gender dynamics that shape the diagnosis and treatment of civilian wartime trauma. Drawing upon the case reports and correspondence of a psychiatric social worker who counselled Holocaust survivors in a Displaced Persons camp in the American Zone of Allied-occupied Germany, I use this article as an opportunity to rethink how we write about the history of trauma and mental health.

TIME BY YOURSELF: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND FINDINGS FROM THE NEW POSITIVE SOLITUDE QUESTIONNAIRE

Abstract The present study describes the development of a new questionnaire for measuring positive solitude. First we will discuss the conceptualization of positive solitude, and refer to the contradictions that exist in the literature regarding this concept. We will then present the theoretical background on which we based our questionnaire, and some empirical findings regarding its utility. We will describe the 9-item tool and its relationships to positive and negative measures of well-being and mental health. Furthermore, we will discuss findings from a Holocaust survivors study showing the role of positive solitude on posttraumatic symptoms. We will conclude this presentation by discussing several future directives, some of which that will be discussed in other presentations of this symposium.

“Our children”: Moral panic associated with children and collective violence against the Jews in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in Poland

AbstractBetween 1945 and 1946, Poland witnessed three large anti‐Jewish pogroms. The infamous Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946, which claimed the lives of over 40 Holocaust survivors was preceded by outbursts of collective violence in Rzeszów and in Kraków. All three pogroms were perpetrated by police officers, soldiers of the Polish army, and civilians forming a pogrom mob, and all were preceded and inflamed by rumors about Jews kidnapping and harming Christian children. Studies of widespread antisemitism and the common belief in blood libel do not seem to offer an adequate explanation of how the people of Rzeszów, Kraków, and Kielce could have believed the rumors that Jews were abducting and murdering children. They explain even less what made possible the social mobilization leading toward mass violence against Holocaust survivors in Poland in the immediate aftermath of WWII. We address this issue by using the concept of moral panic as proposed by Erich Goode and Nachman Ben‐Yehuda and examining possible reasons why Polish society after the WWII seems to have been particularly attuned to the fate of children. We argue that in the early postwar years there was a moral panic in Poland associated with the vulnerability of children. It was propelled by wartime experience but also by omnipresent violence and hideous crimes committed against children in the wake of WWII. Although there was no fact‐based connection between these crimes and the Jews, many Polish Christians eagerly put the blame on “the Other,” that is, the Jews, and sought facts that could serve as confirmation of an old prejudice—the blood libel. Polish Christians who accepted the blood libel as truth could have found confirmation of their belief when Jewish relatives or Jewish organizations undertook to “recover”—through legal procedures, by payment, by subterfuge or by force—children who had been hidden in Christian families during the Holocaust.

The Poets of Myanmar

Since this field is required for the submission to continue, I am including the same biography as in previous screen:
 Biography
 Paul Cummins’ Poems have appeared in numerous publications including The New Republic, Poetry LA, Whole Notes, Exquisite Corpse, Coracle, Black Buzzard Review, Rattle, Cooweescoowee, Cloudbank, Rockhurst Review, South Loop Review, Absoloose and Perfume River. Also he has won several poetry prizes and has appeared in many anthologies.
 In addition, Cummins is an educator, writer and social entrepreneur. From Stanford (B.A.) to Harvard (M.A.T.) to USC (Ph.D.) to classroom teaching 1960-71, he went on to the founding and co-founding of six schools — including private schools such as Crossroads School and TREE Academy, plus Camino Nuevo Public Charter School. From the creation of educational outreach programs such as P.S. Arts and The Coalition for Engaged Education to all his groundbreaking and innovative ventures, Cummins has been a champion for quality education, especially for at-risk, foster and incarcerated youth.
 His publications include an autobiography, Confessions of a Headmaster, three other books on education, two children’s books, four collections of essays, a biography of a holocaust survivor, Dachau Song, and three volumes of poetry.

Echoes of ancestral trauma: Russo-Ukrainian War salience and psychological distress among subsequent generations in Holocaust survivor families.

The Russo-Ukrainian War intensified when Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The current study examined whether children (second generation; G2) and grandchildren (third generation; G3) of Holocaust survivors are more preoccupied with the war relative to comparisons. Moreover, whether there was more exacerbation in psychological distress in Holocaust survivor families relative to comparisons since the escalation of the war. A random sample from a web-based survey company included 1,071 Jewish Israeli adults (297 Holocaust G2, 224 comparison G2, 379 Holocaust G3, and 171 comparison G3). The average age of the participants was 62.95 ± 10.25, 61.79 ± 10.13, 34.02 ± 8.65, and 33.55 ± 8.26, respectively. Participants answered questionnaires on background characteristics, Russo-Ukrainian War exposure, Russo-Ukrainian War salience, and general psychological distress before and since the escalation of the war. Findings showed that Holocaust G2 and G3, relative to comparisons, reported more Russo-Ukrainian War salience. Moreover, more psychological distress symptom exacerbation was found in Holocaust survivor families relative to comparisons since the escalation of the war. Finally, Holocaust G2 and G3 with more Holocaust survivors in the family showed higher anxious preoccupation with the war and Holocaust G3 with more survivor grandparents showed more exacerbation in psychological distress. Findings suggest a specific vulnerability due to intergenerational transmission of trauma in Holocaust survivor families, including increased preoccupation with and perceptiveness to potential threats of human-induced trauma. Strengthening previous recommendations, mental health practitioners should focus on reducing the preoccupation with threat and the increased psychological distress of Holocaust survivor families when faced with current adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

"I'm not a person anymore": The "survivor syndrome" and William G. Niederland's perception of the human being.

Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and neurologist William Guglielmo Niederland (1904-1993) received widespread acclaim for his research on Holocaust survivors, yet his other psychoanalytic work has yet to achieve comparable recognition. In this article, I will examine the affinities between Niederland's study of the Holocaust survivors and other major works in his canon to demonstrate the cohesive nature of his worldview, philosophy, and psychoanalytic trajectory while also illuminating Niederland's portrait of the human being. This work is divided into two sections. The first section will deal with what I have termed as "the phenomenological sensitivity" which articulates Niederland's unique intellectual approach of subjectively retracing his patients' phenomenal experiences. The second section will discuss Niederland's image of the human being at the nexus of space and time, as it emerges from a comparative reading across his various writings. Ultimately, the article will present these two recurrent elements not only to help identify Niederland's integrated worldview which extends throughout, but also beyond his trauma work with Holocaust survivors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Jean Améry and the time of resentment

The article provides a close reading of Jean Améry’s essay, ‘Resentments’ from the perspective of temporality. Although firmly grounded in a specific historical and political context (Améry, a Holocaust survivor, reflects on the aftermath of his experiences during the war), I argue that this essay offers valuable insights into Améry’s philosophy of temporality. After establishing the context and structure of Améry’s ‘Resentments’, the article delves into a discussion of the temporal aspects found in the text: (1) Delay: the emergence of resentments and their connection to trauma. (2) Eternal Recurrence: Améry’s critique of Nietzsche, along with surprising interconnections between their ideas. (3) Natural Time and Forgiveness: Améry’s critique of the temporal structure of forgiveness and the morally questionable prioritization of the future over the past. (4) Moral Time and the Irreversible: the distorted temporal structure of resentments, and Améry’s thought-provoking exploration of the phantasy of time’s reversibility. (5) The Future: Améry’s direct address to the young Germans and his unexpected suggestion on how they should treat their past and history, emphasizing responsibility rather than blame, as the key their past provides for the possibility of their future.

Why we stayed: Polish Jews’ reasons for remaining in Poland during two waves of postwar emigration

Although Poland’s Jewish presence had been widely considered to be near-obsolete in 1980s, since the 1990s a small but visible revival of Polish-Jewish life has been taking place as many Polish Jews have opened up about and embraced their origins. By interviewing five Polish Holocaust survivors who never left their country of origin, I attempted to answer the question of why they remained while many others fled.

Колективна травма населення України: реалії, перспективи та можливість дослідження трансгенераційного аспекту

Introduction. Ukraine is experiencing a great upheaval - a large-scale war. This distressing situation affects the entire population of the country, therefore, beyond any doubt, the term "collective traumatization" can be used for today's situation in Ukraine. Modern research and study of the impact of collective trauma in Ukraine refers to the analysis of its negative consequences on various spheres of life, including the sphere of mental health: identification of the level of anxiety, psychological consequences, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorders. Although, the study of the impact of a powerful collective trauma on future generations Ukrainians needs timely planning and preparation. The aim of study: to conduct a theoretical analysis of approaches to the study of the concept of "collective trauma", to study the concept of memory in the understanding of collective trauma, to analyze the peredictors and preventors of transgenerational transmission of collective trauma, to consider the epigenetic mechanisms of collective trauma, to investigate the research psychometric tools on the transmission of transgenerational trauma between generations, to investigate the specifics of the collective trauma of the population of Ukraine. Method. A literature search was conducted in the scientific databases of Web of Science, Scopus, Pub Med, Google Scholar using the keywords "collective trauma", "traumatic memory", "transgenerational trauma", "cultural trauma", "multigenerational legacies of trauma" in the period from 2002 to 2023. 17,720 sources were identified. Inclusion criteria were: (a) controlled randomized research (b) on preventors and predictors of transmission of collective trauma (c) to subsequent generations. The results. 46 international publications were included in the literature review, and predictors and preventers of the transmission of trauma through generations were analyzed from the standpoint of attachment theory, family systems, and epigenetics. Most authors note the presence of a link between the parents' trauma and the mental health of the offspring, the greater intensity of the reparative adaptive styles the greater is the risk of developing affective or anxiety disorders in the offspring. The studies of epigenetic mechanisms of the transgenerational impact of trauma have shown the presence of changes in the methylation of the FKMB-5 gene in Holocaust survivors and their descendants. The collective trauma experienced by the people of Ukraine at the times of war has its own specificity, which distinguishes it from other collective traumas, including those experienced directly by the Ukrainian people in the past (the Holodomor, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). In order to further conduct research and study the transmission of war trauma in Ukraine through subsequent generations and to identify possible factors of resistance, the "Danieli Inventory of Multigenerational legacies of trauma" was adapted for the Ukrainian context of war (Appendix 1). Conclusions. Research on a topic of multigenerational legacies of collective trauma is a debatable issue. Research on factors of transgenetic changes in large groups in Ukraine is needed. Research on the next generations should include (a) large-scale genetic studies, (b) analysis on plevalence and distribution of mental health disorders in children of war veterans and the survivors of collective trauma, (c) changes in social behavior of the new generations.

How Holocaust Survivors Cope with Life: A Cross-Sectional Study of Financial Exploitation in Israel.

How Holocaust Survivors Cope with Life: A Cross-Sectional Study of Financial Exploitation in Israel.