War Survivors Research Articles

Indirect intrusions about World War Two in survivor offspring: a qualitative thematic content analysis

ABSTRACT Background: A proportion of Dutch World War Two (WWII) survivor offspring reports intrusions about a war they have not experienced themselves. Knowledge about the content of these intrusions may provide an in-depth understanding of the themes impacting the mental health of offspring and the intergenerational consequences of parental traumatic WWII events. Therefore, this study used a qualitative approach to examine the core themes of indirect intrusions reported by survivor offspring. Methods: Participants (N = 41) were post-war-born offspring of WWII survivors. They were in treatment in one of two national clinics specialized in the treatment of war victims. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis of the written descriptions of indirect intrusions reported in the offspring sample and related to WWII survivor experiences. Results: The analysis indicated the following themes: Cruelty (with several subthemes), Perspective (first or third person), Sensory perceptions, and Emotions. Conclusions: Offspring mostly described intrusions about WWII as visual cruel images from a first-person perspective, provoking distress and other strong emotions. Indirect intrusions may signify intergenerational consequences of parental traumatic events. Therefore, special attention is needed to the presence and content of indirect intrusions among offspring of survivors of wars or other traumatic events.

Patterns of Productive Aging Among Vietnamese War Survivors: The Influential Role of Early-Life War Exposure and Past Military Service.

War disrupts millions of lives, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where armed conflicts are most frequent. Although war has received extensive research attention, its long-term impact on productive aging remains unclear. This study investigates how early-life war exposure affects productive aging among older Vietnamese war survivors and examines the moderating role of past military service and gender. Data come from the Vietnam Health and Aging Study (N = 2,447 war survivors aged 60+). Latent class analysis identifies patterns of later-life engagement across five domains: work, in-kind support, caregiving, community involvement, and self-development. Multinomial logistic regressions assess associations between war exposure, military role, gender, and productive aging profiles. The analysis identifies five engagement patterns: High Engagers, Altruistic, Low Engagers, Civic Developers, and Active Workers. Greater war exposure is associated with profiles reflecting higher levels of engagement. Military role moderates this relationship: formal military veterans are more likely to be classified as Active Workers under high exposure conditions. Informal military members, by comparison, are more likely to be classified as Low Engagers. Gender further moderates these patterns, with women less likely to belong to profiles marked by high levels of public participation. To promote productive aging in conflict-affected LMICs, policymakers should consider the long-term effects of early-life war exposure, past military service, and gendered disparities. Addressing these inequalities through early interventions may help improve long-term engagement outcomes.

EXPLORING THE PROTAGONIST’S SUFFERING IN DENNIS BOCK’S THE ASH GARDEN

This research explores the multidimensional suffering of the protagonist, Emiko Amai, in Dennis Bock’s novel The Ash Garden, using Quilao’s theoretical framework on human suffering. Through a descriptive qualitative approach, the study identifies five types of suffering—physical, psychological, social, existential, and ethical—as reflected in Emiko’s experiences before, during, and after the Hiroshima bombing. The analysis highlights how Emiko, as a war survivor, embodies the traumatic effects of violence, displacement, and physical disfigurement. Her journey reveals not only the pain and isolation endured in the aftermath of war but also the gradual process of resilience and self-redefinition. Emiko’s coping strategies—both physical and psychological—demonstrate how human beings attempt to restore meaning and identity in the face of profound loss. By situating her suffering within a literary and humanistic context, this study contributes to the discourse on trauma narratives and deepens the understanding of war-induced suffering in postmodern literature.

The work of industrial enterprises in Kostroma during the USSR participation in World War II: difficulties and ways to overcome them

As a result of the analysis of archival materials, collections of documents, and memoirs of the war survivors, the authors of the article for the first time comprehensively have analysed the work of industrial enterprises in Kostroma during the participation of the USSR in World War II. In order to better understand how difficult it was to fulfill military orders, a description of pre-war Kostroma is given, showing the unsolved tasks, the fulfillment of which was aggravated by the war. The subjective and objective reasons for the under-fulfillment of the military production plan were identified: personnel shortages, difficulties in restructuring for the production of military products, arrival of unskilled workers, shortages of raw materials and fuel, underperformance of managers at various levels, and household problems. But since the 2nd half of 1943, all Kostroma enterprises had begun to fulfill and exceed their plans. The authors analysed a set of measures that helped this: multifaceted work with personnel, primarily with newcomers to enterprises, diverse ideological and political work, introducing new forms of socialist competition, improvement of the morale climate due to victories on the fronts, etc. As a result, the enterprises successfully fulfilled defence orders and, overcoming physical and psychological difficulties, residents, like the whole country, achieved victory over a strong enemy.

When an earthquake hits a war-affected population: longitudinal growth trajectories of psychopathology in individuals in northwest Syria.

The Kahramanmaraş earthquakes in February 2023 represented a disaster within a disaster, as northwest Syria had been affected by years of war. Literature on the immediate psychological impact of such natural disasters in high-adversity populations is lacking. To examine prevalences, longitudinal trajectories and cognitive predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) in survivors of armed conflict in northwest Syria exposed to the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes. We assessed self-reported PTSD, depression and GAD symptoms, as well as self-efficacy and repetitive negative thinking (RNT), at 4, 11 and 18 weeks post-earthquake (T1, T2 and T3, respectively) in 204 war survivors exposed to recent earthquakes. Retention rates for T2 and T3 were 84.4 and 75.8%, respectively. To determine trajectories of PTSD, depression and GAD, we conducted latent class growth analyses with time, self-efficacy and RNT as predictors, and trauma history, education and gender as covariates. Prevalences of probable PTSD, depression and GAD according to questionnaire cut-offs were 80.4, 79.9 and 70.1% at T1; 62.2, 57.2 and 54.2% at T2; and 62.1, 55.2 and 51.1% at T3. Across all disorders, three developmental trajectories emerged, with most participants following a recovery or low-symptom trajectory. RNT was associated with protracted recovery. Natural disasters are associated with poor mental health in individuals in war-torn regions. Although latent class growth analyses indicated prevailing recovery trajectories, prevalence remained alarmingly high across time. RNT emerged as a potential transdiagnostic factor across disorders. Research and interventions should prioritise northwest Syrians' unprecedented mental health needs.

'Unburden us and them': encountering 'the other' in meetings between Bosnian genocide survivors and Dutch UN veterans.

Recently, the Dutch government granted 'Dutchbat 3' veterans and their partners the opportunity to return to Srebrenica and its surroundings, where they had been located up until the genocide of 1995. An important part of these return trips is dedicated to on-site meetings with women survivors of war and genocide. These encounters are thought to encourage more dialogue, mutual understanding, and an engagement with 'the other's' points of view, with the aim of transforming the relationship between the participants. However, the conditions needed to make these encounters equal and meaningful are not yet fully understood. Levelling the playing field in encounters implies an 'unlearning' of earlier acquired perspectives, narratives, and worldviews, and involves mutual openness and respect. The success of an encounter is dependent on the willingness of visitors and hosts to think and do differently. This might be challenging in a context in which the memory of past conflict is highly gendered, polarized and politicized. By better grasping whether and in what ways encounters with 'the other' might become meaningful, it could be possible to design and implement these encounters accordingly. In this article, we aim to identify the conditions needed to enable or disable such encounters. Based on ethnographic research of survivors and veterans, we ask: which conditions need to be met to make the encounters meaningful for the participants? We argue that their current form has potential, but that, to be successful, more attention is needed to better understand what engaging with 'the other' really requires: it means being ready to 'restory' the past and be open to different perspectives. Our research shows that this is not easily done: dominant narratives feed into dichotomous memory cultures, causing people to fall back into old patterns, despite the fact that both groups had suffered from very similar forms of institutional neglect. To redress this the conceptualization of the encounters and return trips would need to be carefully considered.

Understanding aspirations and negotiations of women war survivors and the implications for children’s education in Uganda

ABSTRACT This study explores the pivotal role of education as a mechanism for social restoration and a beacon of hope for women and their children born amidst the conflict in Northern Uganda. It delves into the experiences of women who endured the trauma of wartime sexual violence, highlighting their efforts to articulate and navigate their past while fostering aspirations for a brighter future. The narrative highlights these women’s determination to build the life they desire, focusing on the hope of a better future for their children through education and personal growth. The mothers’ 1 “everyday” notions of social repair and hope are embodied in the many ways they aspire to rebuild their lives and renegotiate their roles as daughters who have been rejected by their natal relatives. Education is one way they strive to overcome reintegration challenges, reclaiming their social status and relationships, sometimes shaped by Acholi societal notions of motherhood.

Polyphony in Mary Borden’s selected poems

This study examines the manifestation of polyphony in the war poetry of Mary Borden, an American-British poet whose works capture the multiplicity of voices, both heard and silenced, during wartime. It contributes to modernist and postmodernist literary discourse by addressing the overlooked polyphonic dimensions of her poetry. The research focuses on three poems from her collection The Forbidden Zone (1929): At the Somme: The Song of Mud, The Hill, and Unidentified. The data collection and analysis involve close textual examination and application of postmodernist conceptions of polyphony by exploring various forms of polyphony, including dialogical relationships, levels of communication, diversity of voices, styles of discourse, and perspectives to explore how polyphony shapes the structure, unity, and meaning of Borden’s poetry. The findings reveal that Borden manifested polyphony as fragmentation, religious and mythological norms, muted voice, philosophical and religious voices, juxtaposition, vocalized icons, psychological and introspective polyphonic dialogs, and rhetorical voices. They are used to depict the horrors of war, capturing the suffering, anguish, and trauma experienced by soldiers through the fragmented and subjective perspectives of a nurse and an eyewitness. Her use of trench poetry accentuates the emotional turmoil of war, reflecting grief, despair, and anger through a polyphonic and fragmentary style. The research argues that the relationship of multiple voices within these poems reflects the brokenness of nations and the fragmented consciousness of war survivors. By engaging with polyphonic voicing, this analysis demonstrates how Borden’s poetry challenges readers to confront the incompleteness, indeterminacy, and enduring psychological impact of war.

IMPACT OF TRAUMATIC PARENTAL EXPERIENCES WITH WARS ON OFFSPRING’S MENTAL HEALTH

Intergenerational transmission of trauma (ITT) is a process in which the trauma experienced in one generation is transmitted to the second or third generation. Understanding intergenerational transmission of trauma and its complexity promotes further understanding of how trauma affects individuals, families, and communities across generations, how to address it through effective intervention, and how offspring can be protected from ITT. The focus of this paper is to describe the effects and mechanisms of transmission between several war-related potentially traumatic events that parents experienced during their childhood and its intergenerational effects on their children. Using the PRISMA criteria, 34 psychosocial studies and 7 epigenetic studies met the scope of the inclusion criteria. Overall findings indicate that the children of war survivors often face mental health difficulties and suffer from PTSD symptoms, internalizing symptoms, externalizing problems, and attachment anxiety and avoidance. Regarding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of war trauma, self-report measures show different parenting and family-mediated transmission mechanisms of mental health risks on children while epigenetics reveals the underlying biological basis of ITT. Future research must work towards a more precise operationalization of the transmission mechanisms, protective factors, and risk factors. This will provide a better understanding of the underlying processes and enable the planning of targeted and timely prevention programs for war-affected parents to protect the immediate and long-term mental health and well-being of children. Key words children; war; intergenerational transmission of trauma; mental health; epigenetics

Predisposed vulnerabilities and survival among the Finnish soldiers of World War II: historical life course approach.

In this methodological paper we propose a historical life course approach to analyze soldiers' predispositions to experience war-related violence and stress and to respond to it. We argue that a closer quantitative inspection of pre-war and wartime factors will help to understand the various causes leading to different exposures to stress and violence during the war, which have consequently had different outcomes for the war survivors' later lives. Our methodology is designed for a rich data source, the Finnish Army in World War II Database (FA2W, N = 4,253), but is generally also applicable to other case studies. We will demonstrate in practice how we apply the historical life course approach to the study of soldiers' pre-war background variables, wartime service paths, and measurable war stress exposures. In the final discussion, as one potential follow-up to our proposal, we will point to an advanced historical analysis of community-building and meaning-making linked to different war experience profiles combining the quantitative social historical methodology with a qualitative cultural history approach.

Traumatizing Societies and Resilient Children: A Personal Reflection

ABSTRACT What factors contribute to building resiliency? This paper discusses the salient literature on childhood trauma and severe trauma including resiliency. The discussion is interwoven with the author’s own experience growing up in a totalitarian setting, as a second-generation child of survivors of World War II. Chief protective factors building resiliency include positive identifications and close family ties. Her later mastery, through becoming an analyst, was a key sublimation.

The Ukrainian version of the Perceived Injustice Questionnaire: A psychometric evaluation.

Perceived injustice is increasingly recognized as a key factor influencing mental health in war survivors. This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Ukrainian translation of the Perceived Injustice Questionnaire (PIQ) among individuals directly exposed to the war in Ukraine. 170 war-exposed Ukrainians completed the Ukrainian PIQ and measures of post-traumatic tress disorder (PCL-5), depression (PHQ-9), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7), and potentially traumatic life events (LEC-5). Internal consistency, factor structure, and criterion validity were assessed. While the factor structure of the English version could not be reproduced, indicating an issue with factor validity in the Ukrainian version, the Ukrainian PIQ demonstrated strong correlations with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (r = .71, p <.01), moderate associations with depression (r = .62, p <.01) and generalized anxiety disorder (r = .61, p <.01), and a weaker link with potentially traumatic life events (PTLEs, r = .35, p <.01). It significantly predicted PTSD, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms beyond PTLE exposure, explaining 33% of variance in depression, 31% in GAD, and 45% in PTSD These findings provide evidence supporting the construct validity of the PIQ in terms of its relationships with mental health outcomes. The Ukrainian PIQ also demonstrated excellent overall reliability (α = .90), with factor reliabilities ranging from α = .74 to α = .81. The Ukrainian version of the PIQ demonstrates promising psychometric properties and emerges as a highly significant correlate of mental health outcomes. This underscores its potential utility in clinical practice for assessing the treatment needs of Ukrainians affected by the consequences of war. Moreover, the findings highlight the importance of developing therapy modules specifically tailored to address perceived injustice. Further research is warranted to investigate the cross-cultural adaptability and comparability of the PIQ.

Later-life social network profiles of male war survivors in Vietnam: Implications for health behaviors

Later-life social network profiles of male war survivors in Vietnam: Implications for health behaviors

Effectiveness of a self-directed REACH Forgiveness intervention among Christian war survivors in Colombia: A randomized wait-list controlled trial.

Effectiveness of a self-directed REACH Forgiveness intervention among Christian war survivors in Colombia: A randomized wait-list controlled trial.

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF WAR AND THEIR TRANSGENERATIONAL DIMENSION

This paper is about the psychological effect of war. By the welding of the explanatory potential of psychoanalysis and anthropology, it argues that victims of armed conflict, particularly if protracted, construct a melancholic response (Yordanova, 2018). Often, people on the move are met with hostility by the host countries or may find themselves in the social periphery. This fosters ambivalence towards the new environment as an expression of vulnerabilities. The paper suggests an intergenerational aspect to the above dynamic, too. Children, exposed to violence, lack the emotional and cognitive maturity to grasp what they have lived through. Yet, overwhelmed with their own feelings of loss, their parents fail to help them deal with the trauma. Thus, children identify with the parents’ complicated grief and the assumption of an idealized pre-war past versus scarce future opportunities. Finally, the paper examines the intersections between individual war trauma, cultural memory and power dynamics in post-conflict societies. Using my field work in Sarajevo (2012, 2018), I argue that war survivors avoid the construction of a consistent war narrative in the first person because they need the state-recognized version of history to be re-written (Yordanova, 2015). The ambiguity of their experience in war, the inadequacy of language to convey horror, and the clash of private memories with the official discourse drive them to alternative forms of expression. Survivors and their children use art, humour, tattoos, scarring, and landscape to explain the war and get connected to each other. In the post-war environment, the narrative of veterans who were most exposed to warfare becomes muted in order not to challenge the political status-quo.

Body Mapping: A Decolonial Method Towards Intergenerational Healing

Body Mapping: A Decolonial Method Towards Intergenerational Healing

Exploring the Role of OPT: Trauma Narratives and Community Building in Times of War and Crisis

Delving into Tal’s theory of other people’s trauma (OPT), this qualitative study investigates the importance of fostering community and sharing traumatic experience among war survivors with respect to Born Under a Million Shadows (2009) by Andria Busfield. The major focus of the study is the exploration of the way the trauma narratives engage in the process of collective healing, resilience and post-traumatic growth (PTG) and retrieval. The research is concerned with explaining the role of OPT in community building and narrativization of trauma, ultimately asserting the impact of OPT on invidiual and collective healing and recovery. By doing this, the research will enrich the existing knowledge on psychology, social work, academia and conflict resolution, emphasizing the significance of integrating OPT into community development initiatives and trauma care services.

A SEMIOTIC INVESTIGATION OF THE MEANINGS ABDUCTED FROM THE CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS OF WAR: STORYTELLING THROUGH DRAWINGS

Drawing is a vital tool used in understanding people, especially children, with the use of visual media as a means of expressing their emotions, as well as the use of different forms of images that emerge on a drawing surface. Therefore, it is significant to understand that children can use different forms of drawing media to articulate their inner feelings as well as making their thoughts understandable to others. This study, based on the belief that the art works of child survivors furnish materials for analysis, focuses on meaning-making of the drawings of the child survivors of war through semiotics investigation, thereby exposing the stories of war through the lens of the child survivors. This made use an analytical research design to investigate the poster narratives drawn by the participants who were living in the two temporary shelters of Marawi last September 2020. The researcher had meaningful meaning-making of the drawings and the findings of the study include: conceptualization of the masjid (mosque) as a sanctuary during war; definition of religion as a wellspring of resiliency, demarking peace as the absence of war, and highlighting the role of kambangsa (clanship) amidst danger, and from all of these, a grand narrative of the child survivors of Marawi Siege was written. The meanings abducted from the drawings led to the narratives of the child-survivors- narratives that may have been left unspoken and unheard after all these years of trying to live a normal life as young, gentle and innocent children of the city. This supported the claims that children are thinkers with knowledge of their own sensations, thoughts, beliefs and other mental states. Finally, this study implied that drawings are rich sources for semiotic discourse despite the limitations at hand.

Magnitude of psychological distress and associated factors among war survivor women in Northern, Ethiopia, 2022: a community-based cross-sectional survey

BackgroundCivilian war and internal conflicts increase the incidences of mental health conditions among war survivors. It is crucial to assess war-related psychological consequences in war-affected areas in Ethiopia to intervene in the future. Thus, this study aimed to determine the magnitude of psychological distress and associated factors of psychological distress among war survivor women in Northern, Ethiopia.MethodsA community-based cross-sectional survey was conducted, and 1596 war survivor women were recruited to participate using a face-to-face interviews with a census sampling technique from May 1–30, 2022. The psychological distress was assessed using a Kessler psychological distress scale (K10). Bi-variable and multi-variable logistic regression analyses were used, and variables with a p-value less than 0.05 in the multivariable analyses were considered statistically significant.ResultIn this study, the response rate was 100% and the prevalence of psychological distress was 44.90% at a 95% CI: (42.40, 47.40). Psychological distress was significantly associated with the education of ability to read and write (AOR = 2.92; 95% CI: 2.12, 4.01), primary education and above (AOR = 3.08; 95% CI: 2.09, 4.54), housewife (AOR = 5.07; 95%CI: 2.64, 9.74), farmer (AOR = 8.92; 95%CI: 4.03, 19.70), emotional violence (AOR = 1.52; 95%CI: 1.05, 2.18), physical violence (AOR = 3.85; 95%CI: 2.37, 6.26) and sexual violence (AOR = 3.25; 95%CI: 1.98, 5.33) whereas being separate was protective for psychological distress (AOR = 0.38; 95%CI: 0.16, 0.92).ConclusionThe prevalence of psychological distress was found to be high. Therefore, women who are housewives, married, farmers, educated, and who have experienced violence must be the focus of governmental and private collaborative interventions to prevent war-related psychological morbidity and mortality.

BREAKING SILENCE, SHAPING HISTORY: UNVEILING MARGINALIZED FEMALE WAR-CRIME SURVIVORS’ VOICES

This paper is the synopsis of an ongoing qualitative research project on an intersectional and biopolitical analysis of selected war memoirs written by marginalized female war crime survivors. The primary object of this research is to explore the layers of subjectivity as expressed through the memoirs by women who, in different corners of the world, were subjected to different forms of war crimes during the late twentieth and the twenty-first century. The research paper aims to find whether these life-writings should be recognized only as chronicles of their silent sufferings or as bold proclamations of their resistance against the biopolitical oppressions they were exposed to. In order to do so, a theoretical framework comprising intersectionality and biopolitics will be used according to which the selected memoirs will be critically analyzed. The proposed research will follow a research methodology that is descriptive, correlational, analytical, and exploratory in approach. The primary findings reveal the historical trajectory of women's autobiographical writings related to war and conflicts, identifying the scarcity of such narratives that underscores the challenges faced by survivors in documenting their experiences. The expected outcome is to offer a counter-narrative to official war stories, demonstrating the efficacy of testimonial life-writings from marginalized individuals as human rights activism tools, with potential implications for policy-making, advocacy against sexual violence in conflict zones, and contributing evidence for prevention, justice, and support initiatives, while also highlighting ethical challenges and paving the way for further studies on the intersectional and biopolitical dimensions of sexual violence.