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Where Do We Belong? Feeling A Part of or Apart from Our Communities


Michael Zolno, Chicago, Darlene Basch, LCSW, Los Angeles

A popular song among Shoah (Holocaust) survivors after WWII was Vi Ahein Zol Ikh Gayn (Where Shall I Go - Where Do I Belong). The familiar world survivors lived in and belonged to was utterly destroyed - their communities, organizations, social networks, friends, lovers, and families. All those things that they had belonged to -- destroyed -- gone. After the war ended there was nowhere to belong. Survivors were forced to form new families, social networks, organizations and other things to which they could belong. Yet it seemed that that they did not feel like they belonged anywhere. This sense of unbelonging has been passed on to their children.

Right after the end of World War II some of us were born in Displaced Persons' Camps in Germany. We were unwanted by the outside world, belonging to a group of people, Shoah Survivors, living in chaotic times and in places where they had no sense of belonging. Their prewar world was decimated and few had any post-war world to which they could go.

Many survivors began forming organizations while still in DP Camps. Shortly after coming to the United States, they formed social groups in an effort to replace their lost communities and social networks. These groups were often organized around the towns or regions from which they came in Europe or their experiences during the war. They needed to have something they could belong to, a place where they could feel comfortable given that American society was not all that interested in them.

Our parents, the survivors, arrived virtually from a black hole - no life before because the life before was totally destroyed. It sometimes feels like a time warp - not here in the present, with only a fleeting glimpse of a past. They wondered, "What time do we live in? No past - no present - what is the future? Our people - our culture - our world - our weltgeist (world view) All are gone. So where do we belong?"

What is belonging? Fitting in? Being let in, accepted in, welcomed in? We need to feel that we deserve to belong. Belonging is a feeling - not a just a membership. It involves being included or accepted by others in a group.

Belonging is an issue that most children of survivors have struggled with although most of us have never named it as such. The term "search for identity" was the term in vogue as most of us entered adulthood in the 60's and 70's. We took different roads to explore our heritage but often came to similar conclusions.

Many of us:

  • had parents who either never talked about the Shoah or never stopped talking about it
  • feel a strong attachment to and involvement with our parents and thus inherited their sense of not belonging
  • have a strong sense of family loyalty
  • have small extended families and often no grandparents
  • feel like we have no roots although we want them
  • are not group joiners but often have a strong Jewish identity
  • have an ambivalent relationship to our possessions
  • are always prepared to flee (a figurative packed suitcase)
  • are secretive and often ambivalent about our identity as descendants of survivors

Here in the USA it is easy to say I am a Jew - but it is not so easy to say my parents survived; it's not easy to quickly see where it is I belong, to what group? Although they survived the worst tragedy of the 20th Century, we often felt our survivor parents' fragility and were compelled to protect them, be good, fit in for them since they felt themselves to be outside the mainstream.

There were often tremendous tensions between the pressures from our survivor parents to fit in, be good American kids while at the same time being good sons and daughters and adhere to the rules of our European parents. Many of our parents survived by hiding, or being one of a large group so that they would not be singled out. What was a learned survival skill for them became a strong message to us to not stand out because it was dangerous. While the pressure to fit in was enormous, the feeling of truly belonging eluded us. In Europe, America and elsewhere, the Second Generation felt this gap and lack of roots.

In Europe, descendants may have a difficult time identifying as Jews and/or figuring out how as Jews they fit into their European cultures. For example, many Greek Jews went to live in Israel as young adults. Although they were not far away from where they grew up, they felt compelled to come back and be close to their parents, where they felt they belonged. They never quite felt at home in Israel.

The sons and daughters of survivors in Germany and Austria also left their homes and traveled the world looking for where they belonged. Many went to Israel, the United States and some to England. After living there for a while, these descendants realized that they did not feel like they belonged there. Many returned to Germany and Austria and in the last 10 years have been struggling with their feeling of belonging there - living in the country of the perpetrators of the Shoah.

In Israel, being a Jew was a given but being the child of a survivor was not simple. The prevailing attitude of the Israeli's for many years was that during the Shoah, the Jews of Europe went to their deaths as sheep go to slaughter, as victims. For the children of these perceived "victims", it was not easy to identify themselves as such, and there was tremendous pressure to fit in, to belong. This pressure often came from survivor parents who came to Israel so that their children would live somewhere they would belong. However, these same parents often insisted that their children to maintain their European values, dress codes, etc. which sometimes made fitting in very challenging for those who desperately wanted to be an accepted member of their peer group.

Before then the Holocaust was rarely discussed in their families or communities, but with the showing of "Schindler's List" and the ensuing testimonials and publicity of Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the subject of the Shoah was opened up around the world. Suddenly, the survivors living in Europe were being asked to videotape their eyewitness accounts of what happened during the Shoah and many of the interviewers were the children of these survivors. The issue of belonging became magnified as many descendants questioned their own decisions of living where they felt a certain familiarity, yet discomfort with their own personal history.

In response to growing up with these feelings in their Second-Generation parents, the Third Generation, the grandchildren of survivors, have taken various roads to finding their own identity. For those who knew their grandparents, they asked many questions and often heard more specific details than their parents knew. The grandparent survivors were more easily able to speak as the years passed and this generation was more easily able to ask questions. Many also traveled out of the countries of their birth, seeking a place to belong, often encouraged by their parents to go to Israel, England and the United States. However, at this time it is not known whether they too will return "home" to the country of their birth, seeking familiarity, if not a sense of belonging.

Many of us search for a place to belong - ein ruhig platz, a place to rest - be at peace. In the late 70s children of survivors began coming together and forming our own groups. We came to realize that they belonged together. We constituted an identifiable group with shared feelings and commonalties of growing up with survivor parents. Just about every descendant who is any way involved with Second-Generation activities says in some way ƒ "I belong here. I'm comfortable with others like me." Even if we have difficulties with each other sometimes, at some level we belong together, recreating the large extended families that were lost in the Shoah.

An example: In January, 1998 descendants of survivors from various Jewish communities around the world such as Melbourne, Sao Paulo, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Toronto, Buenos Aires, and cities across the United States, came together for an informal lunch during a weekend conference. When we introduced ourselves, it became clear that we had a great deal in common. Although we presently lived in different countries, our parents were all from the same parts of Europe and our experiences growing up with them were similar. Suddenly, this random group of strangers felt like family. In that moment that we belonged to something larger and saw that many others around the world shared our own individual growing up experiences. There was great excitement in the room as we realized that not only were we not alone but now we belonged to a large world-wide "family".

However, for some of us born just after the war in Europe, our memories and feelings are not exactly the same as those of us who were born later in the countries where the Shoah did not occur and at times we do not feel like we belong to this younger Second-Generation group. Sometimes we feel closer to the child survivors who were very young during the War because we are actually closer to them in age. One person born in 1946 says, "The issue of belonging is a very hard one because in a way I feel I belong to the survivors, even more as I have devoted part of my last years in tracing their feelings, experiences, lives... and yet I did not go through the Shoah myself."

Within the diversity among descendants of survivors, many paths were taken to addressing the issue of belonging. As we explored our identity, many of us looked in from the outside, attending occasional Jewish activities but never joining the organisations because we did not feel that we belonged. We went to synagogue but often did not become members until we had children and felt compelled to join. Others ran as far away from Judaism and the Shoah as they could get, travelling around the world searching for a sense of belonging, shedding our Jewish backgrounds and investigating Eastern religion, marrying non-Jews, joining secular community and political groups, etc. Some of us dropped out entirely, running away, abusing drugs, and disappearing from society.

Others took the opposite approach. One way of coping with not belonging anywhere is to create a group and become the center of it or become a key player in an already existing group. These descendants often became the presidents of their senior class, Jewish Community professionals, synagogue Board of Directors members, president of professional societies, etc. Some started Second-Generation groups and became leaders in organisations relating to the Shoah and became involved in Yom Hashoah commemorations, mandating Holocaust education in the schools, speakers' bureaus, etc.

Throughout our lives it is clear that we, the descendants of survivors, need to find a way to belong, to help our children find their place in the larger Jewish community and the world. In struggling with fitting in and feeling a sense of belonging, we have much to share with the larger Jewish Community and other ethnic groups. We have a chance to recreate the community our parents lost, and to reclaim our extended family again in that process. Our awareness of the importance of belonging, the questions we ask ourselves and those around us, and our drive to create that feeling among other descendants and the larger community are key to our sense of well-being. Most importantly, we can teach the world that helping people feel they belong is essential - for everyone.

Michael Zolno was born 1947 in the Fohrenwald Displaced Persons Camp. He has extensive training in group facilitation, and planning and marketing for start-up companies. Michael has taught psychology, research methodology, and decision making for business. While still in high school, he became involved in Holocaust issues, assisting a Chicago Rabbi in hunting war criminals. He served as President of the Association of Descendants of the Shoah - Illinois in the early 80's and is President currently. In addition, Michael is the General Secretary for Sheerit Hapleitah, the umbrella organization of Chicago Survivor groups. He is one of the main organizers of Chicago2002: Living the Legacy, a conference for descendants of Shoah survivors and their families.

Darlene Basch, a licensed clinical social worker, is the daughter of a survivor of several death camps. She has been involved in Second Generation activities and Shoah organizations for over 20 years. Darlene is currently president of Descendants of the Shoah, a global 21st Century membership organization whose goals are to provide a means of communication for those who share a core history and to reach out to the Jewish community for solidarity and to the world with a life-affirming message of tolerance. She has traveled around the world training interviewers for Steven Spielberg's 'Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Darlene founded Generation-to-Generation in San Francisco in 1978, was a founding Board member of the Northern California Holocaust Resource Center and in 1981, she was a lead organizer of the Second-Generation program at the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Israel).