ipl-logo

Holocaust Psychological Effects

2396 Words10 Pages

World war 2 was a phenomenon conflict that involved virtually every part of the world. It lasted for 6 years and 3 days (1939-1945). It was divided into two groups axis and allies. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II made it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history. 6 millions of those passings were the Jews who were murdered by the Nazis; this mass murder is called the Holocaust. The Holocaust was an egregious event lead by revenge driven Hitler and the Nazis; this odious event still leaves incessant impact on the world. The word Holocaust itself comes from the Greek words holos (whole) and kaustos (burned). It also signifies a tradition in which the Jews burned people as sacrifices for their …show more content…

The long range psychological effects of the Holocaust on the mental health of survivors are indeed multitudinal and complex. There can be no doubt that profound shock enveloped those arriving at the death camps. What had once been only rumor was, in fact, truth. Shock was followed by apathy. Martin Wangh asserts that "recovery from these two states could occur only by a means of psychic splitting. This meant that some form of denial or 'psychic numbing, ' 'derealization, ' or 'depersonalization. ' had to take place." Also, in general, the senses became heightened, and one lived as a hunted animal, always on the alert for danger. Any aggressive, vengeful impulse had to be constantly suppressed, thus a paranoid attitude could become deeply rooted. Apathy was a period filled with extreme danger, any new arrival, who was already exhausted from the dehumanizing conditions of his transport or the ghettos, who remained in shock for any length of time, would surely be killed. And if he retreated into himself for too long, he would be shunned by other prisoners, and would be thus deprived of their support. One way they tried to cope was the idea of family, but unfortunately most of them found that everyone they knew was dead. Others tried to find work but that was hard to come, so mostly all of them migrated mostly to the USA or Israel. In the United States, in addition to the difficulties shared by most immigrants, the majority of survivors encountered a unique cluster of negative reactions and attitudes. Most arrived as penniless refugees and received initial financial aid from relatives and Jewish organizations. The survivors were provided with very little help, however, in emotional rehabilitation. Their war accounts were too horrifying for most people to listen to. In addition, bystanders ' guilt for having knowingly neglected to do anything to prevent their fate, led many to believe that survivors were pointing a finger at

Show More
Related
459 Words | 2 Pages

In the book Night by Ellie Wiesel a young boy describes his experiences as a Jew in the concentration camps during World War II. During this time, Wiesel witnessed many horrific acts. Two of these were executions. Though the processes of the executions were similar, the condemned and the Jew’s reactions to the executions differed tremendously. The first execution he describes in his book is one of many that occurred during his time in the camp.

Read More
1199 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout all the terror and dehumanization the Jews faced, their real human relationships with others were what kept them truly living. While the Nazis attempted to turn the Jewish people against each other and diminish them to animals, the basic human relationships formed between prisoners, and their continual acts of kindness were the true act of Nazi rebellion and what kept them sane. While “Help was often of a minimal and/or symbolic nature… ability to retain part of his personality and self-respect, and this is given considerable importance in relation to the capacity for survival” (Davidson). The dignity that the Jewish prisoners fought to maintain came from their inclusion and importance in their social group. Therefore, while they attempted to, the Nazis could not steal their dignity.

Read More
867 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout Night, Wiesel depicts a situation in which the Jews were stripped of all emotion, as it transformed into an excess burden that was too strenuous to retain. Despite the fact that the victims of the Holocaust once lived joyous, genuine lives, they were leached of anything worth living for until they became hollowed shells whose only emotion was the lack of any emotion. In the end, the denial of their doom led to their dense apathy which coexisted with a plethora of fragments, which once formed their humanity, that were

Read More
584 Words | 3 Pages

The Nazis were successful in fully dehumanizing Jewish prisoners in concentration camps. This brutal treatment often led to the loss of hope in these camps, part of the Nazis goal. In Night, Eliezer Wiesel’s memoir, he tells of the many instances where he experienced dehumanization during his time at several concentration camps. The Nazis eliminated people’s humanity in many ways, including starvation, nakedness, and taking away their names in exchange for a number. Starvation causes great suffering and deprives people of an essential part of life.

Read More
850 Words | 4 Pages

The dehumanization the Jews underwent during the Holocaust was shocking. They were seen as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘not as evolved’ by the German army. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, published in 1956, he tells of the many events he experienced going in and out of the camps. These events broke down their morals and rid them of their humanity in ways which can only be described as disturbing.

Read More
1033 Words | 5 Pages

The Holocaust was the wide scale murder and extermination of Jews during the Nazi Regime. The Holocaust was undoubtedly a world-changing reality of World War II. Approximately six million Jews died during the Holocaust. Jews were placed in concentration (extermination) camps and forced to work until their subsequent, often inevitable, death.

Read More
1479 Words | 6 Pages

Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially

Read More
1995 Words | 8 Pages

One such piece of literature is Elie Wiesel’s Night, a memoir illustrating his own experiences in German concentration camps, where every day was dominated by the impulse to stay alive. As Wiesel demonstrated repeatedly in his novel, during the Holocaust, self-preservation forced millions of victims to abandon family members and friends; commit desperate, sometimes suicidal, acts; and blinded many victims to the reality of their situations throughout the genocide. One of the most psychologically destructive aspects of the Holocaust was the forced isolation and selective targeting of Jewish victims, many of whom were killed or separated from one another. However,

Read More
571 Words | 3 Pages

And they talked about being traumatized by some of the expectations that the Holocaust had placed on them, such as that they are the reason their parents survived and therefore there was a whole set of things that they would now have to accomplish so that all the people that died— they could give their lives meaning. They had difficulty in any kind of a separation circumstance — divorce and those kinds of things. And they described essentially this problem in separating from their parents," Dr. Yehuda went on to

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
74 Words | 1 Pages

Unfortunately, the Holocaust left psychological impacts and memories to all the Holocaust survivors. Fallowing the liberation of the concentration camps, the Holocaust survivors set their journey on their new lives, new families, and new homes. Suppressed by the trauma they sustained during this time. The trauma of the Holocaust unfortunately did not end at liberation from the concentrations camps because survivors could not cope with the suffering whey were exposed to during Hitler’s regime.

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

In Night one of the ways that the Jews were dehumanized was by abuse. There were beatings, “I never felt anything except the lashes of the whip... Only the first really hurt.” (Wiesel, 57) “They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

"The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators." (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). This genocide was referred to as "The final

Read More
492 Words | 2 Pages

The Holocaust was an altruistic event during WWII where millions of Jews were viciously murdered by the National Socialist Group under Adolf Hitler’s command. The downfall of Germany began when the Great Depression hit in the late 1920’s and the early 1930’s; The Great Depression was a time of political disaster resulting in great civil unrest. The citizens started looking for a solution. Thus the Nazi Party quickly gained popularity. Beliefs of the Nazis included creating a “master race”.

Read More
420 Words | 2 Pages

There were also few prisoners who lost all hope of escape and will to live. These prisoners committed suicide. The most common way to commit suicide amongst the prisoners was to touch the electric fence surrounding the camp. As one could imagine, many prisoners who lived through liberation later suffered from mental disease such as Post-Traumatic Shock Syndrome and recurrent nightmares (“Holocaust Survivors

Read More

More about Holocaust Psychological Effects

Related Topics

Open Document