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Intergenerational Trauma Holocaust

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From 1941-1945, during World War II Jews were systematically massacred in Nazi Germany that was led by Adolf Hitler. Historical records estimated that over 6 million Jews were killed from concentration camps in the most degrading and inhuman manner. The gruesome death of Jews left many survivors to experience severe trauma to date. Intergenerational trauma has been evidenced through various studies and through accounts of eye witnesses. The holocaust had and continues to have a deep effect on the children of the survivors. This is because they grew up in Psychic conflicts, resulting from severe bereavement, morning, guilt feelings and anxiety, which often resulted in overprotection and over expectation. The study of trans generational transmission …show more content…

The assumption that these expectations would diminish over time proved false. Not only did they not disappear with time but as the survivor’s themselves began to age and became more demanding, the sense of burden, and responsibility the children felt became more extreme in their intensity. Much has been written on the topic of children of Holocaust survivors, but for the purpose of this paper, I am going to concentrate on how the intergenerational transmission of the Holocaust trauma onto the second generation has impacted their ability to separate and individuate. By relating to their children as an offshoot of themselves, the parents satisfy their inner need for identity and identification and in this have inadvertently prevented their respective children from being able to individuate and to create a unique …show more content…

In following the Jewish tradition of being named after a deceased relative, being named after dead relatives killed in the Holocaust carries a tremendous responsibility and weight. Some second generation survivors feel they are now literally carrying the dead on their backs. When given the names of deceased family members, the burden of filling the emptiness can be all encompassing for a young child. In the movie “A. Generation Apart”, one of the people interviewed explained that he was the first born in his family and named after both of his grandfathers. He felt tremendous pressure to be good, to be the best and to never cause grief to his parents. Like many second generation survivors, he feels that he represents all the perished people in their

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Many people have learned about the Holocaust throughout the years, but learning about it from a primary source is a whole different experience. A scary journey that turned out to be the Holocaust has been told by two individuals that survived. These two stories tell the reader what life was like and what they went through. Even though the conditions were terrible, both Eli and Lina were able to survive and break away through fear, horrendous experiences, and hope that lead them to surviving and leaving people they cared about behind.

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In Livia Bitton-Jackson’s memoir I Have Lived a Thousand Years, Bitton-Jackson recounts her experience of surviving the Holocaust through the character of Elli Friedman. Elli is a blossoming, intelligent adolescent girl who lives a normal life until the events of the Holocaust take place. Even a broken relationship with her mother does not stop Elli from giving up. This illuminates aspects of Elli’s admirable personality, such as wisdom beyond her years and her strong ambitious attitude. Elli’s young spirit still fights keep her mother alive in the camps despite her mother’s animosity.

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The guest speaker at the Illinois Holocaust Museum posed an unanswerable question to the dozen Chabad eighth-grade boys sitting in front of him. Mitchell Winthrop, 88 years of age, a survivor of the Auschwitz and Mauthausen Nazi concentration camps, had been raised in a secular Jewish home in Lodz, Poland. Why had he, he asked the boys—someone who hadn’t even had a bar mitzvah—been chosen to survive the Holocaust and not his pious, white-bearded grandfather? His question was meant to provoke thought, but it also spurred the graduating class of Chicago’s Seymour J. Abrams Cheder Lubavitch Hebrew Day School into action.

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1380 Words | 6 Pages

When asking anyone what the Holocaust is, there is a very standard answer as to what it was. It is infamously known as the mass killings and imprisonment of Jewish people throughout most of Western Europe. What people fail to acknowledge is that there is more to the Holocaust than this “standard answer.” There have been multiple accounts of what it was like to be in the Holocaust such as the famous books The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Night by Elie Wiesel. The memoir A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal serves the same purpose as any text about this atrocity has served: to inform the public about what truly went on in the concentration camps and beyond.

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Aristotle wrote, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light (Aristotle)”. The Holocaust was one of the darkest times humanity has ever seen. A machination brewed by an extraordinarily perverse man that resulted in the deaths of millions, and robbed millions more of their faith and hope. Families were torn apart, towns were destroyed, and humanity lost, all to satisfy one man’s extreme racism and psychotic agenda. If however, one only chooses to focus on the darkness, they might overlook the light, specifically in the two stories of boys who survived against all odds and shared their tales years after defying death.

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In concentration camps survival meant thinking of only oneself and surrendering any family values or attachments. Unlike other prisoners, Wisel so kept caring about his father to the point of other inmates teasing him for giving his father some bread. “Listen to me kid don’t forget that you are in the concentration camp let me give you good advice stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your father” (110). The advice reflects

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1440 Words | 6 Pages

In the graphic novel Maus II, Art Spiegelman reveals what hardships his father had to go through to survive his time during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel depicted what him and his father went through to withstand the suffering in the concentration camps during the holocaust in his autobiography, Night. The connection between these two works from contrasting genres is the relationships and loyalty to family and friendships shown throughout these accounts. When facing critical situations, remaining loyal to your family and friends is more essential to survival than self-preservation and resourcefulness. Having close relationships with friends and family could benefit you by granting you opportunities to receive support, resources and other components to survival.

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As children at young age are very impressionable, an early childhood experiences can influence a child that can affect them ass an adult. During Nilsen’s childhood, his parent’s divorced when he was at a young age where he went to live with his mother and siblings at his maternal grandfather’s home (Crime Investigation, 2014). As they lived the home, Nilsen became very attached to his grandfather; however, Nilsen’s grandfather had passed away when he was 6 years old which impacted Nilsen when viewing his corpse at the funeral (Crime Investigation, 2014). Along with losing his grandfather, Nilsen became isolated when his mother remarried and had four more children from that marriage (Crime Investigation, 2014).

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Everyone who has learned about World War II should know about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was during the same period of World War II. “What is it called the Holocaust?” you may ask. The Holocaust originates from the Greek language and means “completely burnt offering to God.”

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571 Words | 3 Pages

According to a new study by researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital, Holocaust survivors could have passed to their children the trauma they suffered. Researchers said this is the first demonstration of how psychological trauma endured by a person can have intergenerational effects on his offspring. The research, which was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, included 32 test subjects, Jewish men and women who were at concentration camps during the Holocaust, witnessed or experienced torture, or had to hide from the Nazis during World War II. Researchers also examined the genes of 22 of their adult offspring and compared them to Jewish families who did not live in Europe during the Nazis ' rule.

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It was the start of the Holocaust in 1940 when every kid was forced out of their school’s due to hitler becoming in-charge. All of these kids had lost their education and went home to soon find out that they would also be out of their house. Unwillingly students’ would lose their favorite teacher and possibly the only chance to have an education. “Crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police,” I asked one bystander that had missed one of the trains. This was the next step of the students’ lives that could soon end when being transferred to Auschwitz one of the many cities with gas chambers and

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436 Words | 2 Pages

There are many events in history but Holocaust left a permanent scar on the face of history. The event soaked in blood and tears of innocent would be unforgettable. Holocaust also known as Shoah (in Hebrew) was a genocide that took lives of millions of people from different backgrounds. Approximately 1 million Gypises were killed, 1.5 million mentally and physically handicapped people were victims of T-4 program, but Jews where the primary victims and 6 million Jews died in holocaust (Neiwyk and Nicosia). The Holocaust took place between 1933-1945.

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1182 Words | 5 Pages

The Holocaust was an immoral machination orchestrated by the Nazi’s to eliminate any person who did not meet their criteria of a human. Millions were interned in camps all around Europe. Each person who survived the Holocaust has a different story. Within Elie Wiesel’s Night (2006) and the movie “Life is Beautiful” (2000) two different perspectives on the Holocaust are presented to audiences both however deal with the analogous subjects faced by prisoners. Inside both works you can find the general mood of sadness.

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The Holocaust is the deadliest recognized genocide in human history. It lasted from January 30,1933 – May 8,1945 and would result in the l1 million deaths. The causes of the Holocaust begin at the end of World War One with what Germans referred to as “the stab in the back”. This was a myth that claimed the German Army did not loose World War One but was betrayed by the Jewish population who gave up land and supplies to the Allies. As this spread anti-Semitism or hate for Jewish people grew in Germany as people viewed the Jewish population as deceptive and traitorous.

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