Intergenerational Trauma – The Hidden Voices After The Holocaust
There has been so much shared of survivors’ accounts of the atrocities they lived through in the Holocaust, but not nearly enough of the trauma they’ve passed onto their children, their children’s children and what future generations may have to bear. If we only consider the approximately 11 million victims who were murdered in the Holocaust, there must be at least that many survivors of family members / relatives, who probably have been inflicted with survivor trauma. That also doesn’t consider at least that many descendants of survivors, may live with generational trauma.
Psychological research has found that survivor trauma for those who survived a time as catastrophic as the Holocaust, has been passed on genetically to their descendants and lets us see what future generations may need to confront.
Books have been published, which tell stories of Intergenerational Trauma due to the Holocaust. Jesse Eisenberg’s movie, “A Real Pain” released in October of last year, an academy award winner also tells a story, that is s about Intergenerational Trauma. But nothing has compared to the proliferation of Holocaust survivors’ stories seen in literature and film after the movie “Schindler’s List” was released in 1993 and Steven Spielberg founded the Shoah Foundation, a year later.
Jewish organizations, Holocaust museums and survivor groups have established support groups for descendants of survivors that live with “Second and Third” Generation (“2G & “3G”) trauma. But that’s often where it ends. The public consciousness isn’t anywhere measurably near that for the stories of Holocaust survivors.
I have written a memoir titled “In The Midst of Darkness” – A “Schindler’s List” Survivor’s Story Never Told, that tells what I know of my mother’s teenage life, who was a Schindler survivor, and confronts 2G trauma. Her trauma was due to being a holocaust survivor and that my dad left her being pregnant with me for a German woman. I never knew until five year she passed away that she was a Schindler Jew.
My mother had been defined by her past after what she lived through in the Holocaust, and her parents and six brothers and sisters, who were murdered in Auschwitz. Her undeserved lifetime of hatred for my stepmother and every other German that my brother and I inherited helped lead to his nervous breakdown – a fate that was nearly mine. He was institutionalized before reaching 30. In a world that has never been more divided than since the Holocaust, doesn’t a story of intergenerational trauma manifested in racism not been more important since then, then now?
There are also other stories of 2G survivor trauma included in the memoir that I needed to share. Their trauma like for me and my brother and many others also began as children.
One story is of a mother traumatized by her teenage life in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, which was a starvation camp. She would literally take food out of her mouth that was partially chewed and give it to her child, who was just two or three. The child’s inherited trauma led to being obese throughout adult life. Today, at 5’11, since being 16 has never weighed less than 400 lbs and once reached 600 lbs.
Note, the above story was told anonymously.
The other story is of a women named Liz. Her father was in the Stuttof and Dachau concentration camps. He never shared much of the atrocities that traumatized him in the Holocaust with his children. But his trauma became Liz’s before even reaching her 10th birthday. She felt responsible for everything he went through – living with fear of everything in life, often convinced only the worst can happen. Her trauma led to addiction of psychiatric drugs by her late 40’s. Eventually that led to what some knew her best felt was a suicide she’d been planning. Her death was only a few months before she turned 59. She went to bed one night, but she didn’t wake up the next morning and overdosed on anxiety medication.
What’s really been that hard to understand and honestly heartbreaking is Holocaust Museums and many synagogues have not been very welcoming for a story of a Schindler Jew that confronts Intergenerational Trauma. Prominent institutions for Holocaust remembrance, including The US Holocaust Museum, The Museum of Jewish Heritage, The LA Holocaust Museum, The St. Louis Holocaust Museum, The Simon Wiesenthal Center and even The Shoah Foundation haven’t been very responsive, or receptive. I’ve been told they have other stories that are priorities, the story doesn’t align with their thematic programming, or mission, they can’t tell every story in a public format, or there are layers of bureaucracy that exist.
After seeing how the Holocaust – a nightmare unlike any other in history has impacted survivors, how can these sanctuaries, especially for Holocaust remembrance not want the trauma descendants have inherited being shared to the full reach we’ve given survivors. If not able to tell their stories of trauma to the penetration of public consciousness for survivors, the silence may only continue to leave them without the awareness to ever change the behavior. As the survivor population has abated over the past 20 years, these stories become even more desperately needed.
If we consider the millions of descendants of holocaust survivors that may be inflicted by generational trauma and to what reach, how can we not have every bit of compassion for the stories they need to tell.