by Tori Searce
As time moves on, Holocaust survivors are decreasing in numbers, which limits our ability to hear survivor testimonies and learn different stories, and limits our understanding of the Holocaust and its impacts. This begs the question of how the generations after are being impacted by the Holocaust. Research shows that there are patterns of mental illness within the population of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.
There is a long history of examining the lasting trauma of survivors of Nazi concentration camps. In 1948, psychiatrist Paul Friedman described what he termed “Buchenwald Syndrome” (named for the concentration camp Buchenwald), a collection of psychological symptoms exhibited by camp survivors (Friedman). Danish researcher Per Helweg-Larsen, describing a similar set of symptoms, coined the term “survivor syndrome” in 1952, and in 1954 Knud Hermann and Paul Thygesen coined the term “Konzentrationslagersyndrom” (KZ-Syndrom, or concentration camp syndrome) (Jabłoński). All refer to the mental health disorders that many Holocaust survivors developed as a result of the physical and psychological trauma they suffered. These included sleep disorders, concentration disorders, irritability, anxiety, night terrors, phobias, and flashbacks. Premature aging is also a component: Researchers estimated that one year in a concentration camp was roughly the equivalent of four years of ‘normal’ life. Later work by Jabłoński and others determined that concentration camp syndrome is not only chronic, it is progressive, meaning suffering increases over time.
It has also been determined to be heritable. This is further supported by transgenerational transmission, which was developed through a Canadian clinic in 1966, where it was observed that the patients whose parents or grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust were more likely to have a mental disorder (Şimşek 23). Studies of children of Holocaust survivors emerged, exploring whether children of survivors have higher rates of mental health disorders, similar to those associated with concentration camp syndrome (Dashorst et al). A reason why trauma is passed down through generations is the inability of the first generation to overcome trauma or the extent their trauma has affected them.
Due to this understanding that there is a connection between Holocaust survivors and the generation after, Marianne Hirsch developed the idea of “Postmemory,” which describes this relationship of “personal, collective, and cultural treatment of those who came before them” (Hirsch, Postmemory, 5). In Helen Epstein’s book Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with sons and daughters of survivors, Epstein talks about the different experiences that these children had gone through. Many recount how they want to take on the pain that their parents felt, as they felt obligated to do so. One daughter states, “I thought I could somehow leach the pain from her by listening. It would leave her body, enter mine, and be lessened by the sharing” (60). It is through this we can see how children wanted to empathize with their parents as a way to share in this experience. As remarked in “Post-memory: Family as a Space of Historical Trauma Transmission” by Anjelika Hüseyinzade Şimşek, “[f]amily stories give the individual a sense of identity and create a story for the inclusion, transmission and attachment of new generations” (Şimşek 21). This desire to connect to one’s family or family experiences creates a trauma cycle within the second and third generations. Despite wanting to get closer to parents in an attempt to understand, many parents were closed off to their children, sometimes to the extent of emotional and physical abuse. One daughter states: “try to imagine the bitterness, the kind of desperation I’m talking about. There was never a happy moment that I can remember at home. Never a period of time when you could put your guard down and relax. My Mother didn’t teach me to be proud of myself… I never felt like we were loved” (Epstein 117).
Children of Holocaust survivors appear to be plagued with feelings of guilt or responsibility for their parents, and there is some evidence that this sense of guilt is also heritable: The concept of Jewish guilt is being explored through transgenerational transmission epigenetics that found that stress genes are being passed down generationally. Moreover, Moshe Szyf, in an article titled “Jewish Guilt may be inherited,” noted that “[children and grandchildren of survivors] have higher rates of post-traumatic stress after enduring car accidents, possibly due to modifications in their stress hormone system inherited from their survivor parents” (The Times of Israel). Children were also known to have vivid nightmares of the Holocaust despite never experiencing it, showing the connection to later generations developing PTSD symptoms.
These children and grandchildren also carry what Şimşek terms the “historical trauma” of the Holocaust. Historical trauma is a term developed as a result of the Holocaust and it means that because of the gravity of the event there were cultural ties made that are now a part of Jewish identity as a whole. Historical trauma can be applied to other groups outside of Jewish identity as well, such as African Americans and in more recent studies Palestinian children. In addition to trying to connect to their parents they are now tied to this larger historical trauma, as it is a part of their identity.
When it comes to understanding the trauma of the Holocaust, one must consider gender in addition to culture. Looking further into how people process trauma it is apparent that women are not only twice as likely to develop PTSD but “The lifetime prevalence of PTSD for women is 10% to 12%, compared to 5% to 6% for men” (American Psychological Association). Women who survived the Holocaust are sometimes less likely to share their stories due to the sexual abuse they faced, as it is viewed as “taboo.” This inability to fully process their experience limits their ability to cope with mental health distress. As women are historically the main caretaker for children, this has also perpetuated trauma cycles. One woman recounted how her mother talked about her experience: “she really romanticized a lot about the past…when they shaved their heads they started laughing, they thought it was so funny. I was horrified; I couldn’t understand how they could laugh” (Epstein 39).
Considering the gendered experience of the Holocaust and the implications of it for the future generations is a topic that was historically opposed. Marianne Hirsch’s work with Postmemory was founded with a feminist perspective and used many feminist theories, still somewhat controversial for Holocaust Studies in the 1990s. People have argued that the Holocaust is not a gender issue but a Jewish one, and that dissecting the gendered experience undermines the fact that all Jewish people were subjected to Nazi persecution. However, we also know that torture and persecution were devised along gender lines, so there is good reason to focus on gender in Holocaust testimony, and be mindful that examining the differences does not minimize the scope of the genocide.
Overall, studies show that the extreme trauma that survivors of the Holocaust faced and face has impacts on their children and grandchildren: Emotionally, through PTSD symptoms and mental disorders; and physically, through stress modifiers in their genes. Hopefully more research will be done, so that we can better understand how the Holocaust affected our understanding of trauma and the generational implications of it.
— Tori Searce
Bibliography
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