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EmailHolocaust Survivors: A Study in Resilience
Roberta R. Greene
Indiana University
School of Social Work
ED/SW Bld. Room 4150
902 W. New York Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
This article is reprinted with kind permission from the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, Volume 37(1) and is copyright by Haworth Press. For more information about Holocaust and Holocaust Survivors please visit http://www.haworthpress.com.
"What I maintain is that the personal record, coming after so many others and describing an outrage about which we might imagine we already know all that it is possible to know, is nevertheless different, distinct, unique."
Francois Mauriac, Forward to Night, by Elie Wiesel
"Resilience is a universal capacity which allows a person, group, or community to prevent, minimize, or overcome damaging effects of adversities. . . Resilience may transform or make stronger the lives of those who are resilient."
Grotberg, The international resilience project: Research, application, and policy.
This study presents the results of qualitative interviews with thirteen Holocaust survivors who described their stories of purpose and hope. It recounts how each survivor met untoward circumstances during this time of crisis, mastered his or her memories, and successfully overcame the trauma of the Holocaust. Suggestions are made for how social workers can use the knowledge related to participant’s resilience and postwar adaptation “to translate client remembering into coping strengths” (Zilberfein & Eskin, 1992, p. 68).
Many Holocaust survivors have now reached old age, a time when older adults often review their lives, attempt to resolve old conflicts, and find new meaning in life events. How will survivors, a population characterized by earlier unprecedented separation and loss, experience the sometimes challenging transitions of the third stage of life (Abramovitz, Lichtenburg, Marcus, & Shapira, 1994)? Will they once again go through the trauma of the Holocaust as they experience the aging process, or will they exhibit resilience--the capacity to bounce back despite the exposure to severe risk (Bernard, 1993)?
Although the concept of resilience has gained increased attention, the construct remains ill-defined as it applies to older adults. The ability to overcome the odds, or make markedly successful adaptations, known as resilience, is usually associated with children, adolescents, or young adults (Fraser, Richman, & Galinsky, 1999). Researchers who have explored this phenomenon have been interested in what risk factors, such as family member drug abuse or mental illness, predispose children to maladjustments, and what protective factors shield them from adjustment problems (Garmezy, 1993). The primary research question regarding resilience is how, despite overwhelming or disruptive events, children become competent, and how as adults they maintain healthy functioning.
When the evidence suggested that protective factors, such as a nurturing parent or a significant role model, moderate the effects of risks, researchers then turned their attention to what protective factors decrease stress and enhance adaptation (ibid). The literature contains numerous longitudinal and clinical studies of what factors contribute to high-risk children overcoming extraordinary circumstances. For example, Garbarino (1999) in his book, Lost Boys, concluded that the boys’ capacity to surmount being “abused, abandoned and terrorized . . . was wrapped up in issues of resilience” (p. 161).
Research on children in war zones, such as Mozambique and Cambodia, have documented that such children sprang back, notwithstanding the threat of severe psychological harm (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992). Studies have also found that children can surmount other adversities, such as abusing parents (Higgins, 1994; Wolin & Wolin, 1995), living on the street (Felsman, 1985), and community violence and oppression (Coles, 1986; Dugan, & Coles, 1989).
Among the best-known accounts of resilience related to oppression or persecution is Robert Coles’s (1986) The Political Life of Children in which he captured the remarkable courage of children, such as Ruby, who bravely attended the first integrated schools in the South amidst violence and threats. When Coles reinterviewed Ruby in 1998, he discovered that she had retained her dignity and become a resilient adult (Coles, 1998). In a similar vein, Moskovitz (1983) interviewed twenty-three child survivors airlifted to a London therapeutic safe house following World War II. Forty years after their experience, she learned that they displayed “an affirmation of life–a stubborn durability” (p. 199). Their adult lives were also distinguished by a high level of spiritual involvement, social commitment, and a staunch desire to maintain a stable family life. In a like manner, Moskovitz (ibid) noted that the adult survivors were characterized by “endurance, resilience, and great individual adaptability (p. 20).
The literature suggests that children who experience traumas and become resilient adults, often demonstrate personal strengths, empathy, intellectual skills, hope, and faith (Garmezy, 1993). Resilient adults may also evidence insight, independence, love, initiative, morality, humor, and creativity (Wolin & Wolin, 1993). Their resilience is often fostered by emotional support, strong role models, and religious affiliation (Grotberg, 1995). Social and political activism, a supportive environment, and secure interpersonal attachments may also contribute to resilience (Garbarino, 1995; Higgins, 1994).
According to Robert Lifton (1968,1993), a psychiatrist who carried out an in-depth study of the survivors of Hiroshima and the Holocaust, the self is surprisingly resilient. He found that people who are resilient have a variety of adaptive mechanisms, and are able to bring together or integrate seemingly incompatible ideas. They seek consistency, remain connected to human events, and search for spiritual meaning.
Moreover, resilience seems to be a dynamic quality that facilitates people’s ability to overcome the challenges of stressful life events or family life transitions (Table 1). That is, resilience is increasingly being understood as a life event phenomenon that responds to circumstances that (normally) overwhelm a person’s coping capacity (Greene, in press). Resilience may be understood within an ecological context--how people overcome a constellation of personal and multisystemic risks. In essence, people who seem to have certain personal strengths and experience particularly supportive environments that ameliorate risk, are called resilient (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998).
Despite the growing popularity of the concept, the term resilience does not fit the popular image of the frail, if not debilitated, older adult (Lewis & Harrell, in press). Nor has there has been much research that explicitly links resilience and old age. Therefore, little is known about whether resilience actually continues into old age. However, there is reason to believe that resilience may be understood as variation in the way people respond to risk over time, i. e., resilience is best comprehended by examining how people respond to stress across the life course (Gilgun, 1996). The continuity of resilient behavior needs to be understood as well as how the patterns that establish resilience may be set early in life. There may be discontinuities in resiliency as people change over the life span (Atchley, 1999). For example, people who are not adapting well at one point in life may overcome their difficulties through new social, economic, or emotional opportunities. Clearly, research has demonstrated that even though people have experienced extreme hardships that threaten their very existence--life changes, and sometimes mental health interventions, may promote the inherent capacity to bounce back.
Methodology
This study was based on the assumption that resilience is an innate self-righting mechanism that assists people in redirecting their lives onto an adaptive path following disadvantageous or stressful circumstances (Rutter, 1987; Werner & Smith, 1992). Respondents were told that the purpose of the study was to explore how people who had successfully survived adverse situations perceive their own resilience. The specific goal was to ascertain how participants expressed such strength in the face of significant challenges to their adaptational capacity during the Holocaust (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Of particular interest was how consistent the survivors’ perceptions of their experiences were with other research findings related to resilience.
The interview questions were developed from a resilience-based perspective to better understand what gave survivors the power to persist and survive. The questions included:
- What are the conditions that facilitate health and wellness?
- How do people navigate threats or overcome adversity?
- How do people handle traumatic events or difficult life transitions?
- What contributes to people’s ability to regenerate or bounce back?
- How do humans cope with everyday events and generate problem-solving strategies and solutions?
The interview respondents were obtained from the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council’s executive director, who mailed letters asking for participants to call the author if they were interested in the study. Thirteen (of the fifteen people who called to participate) were able to schedule an appointment. Those interviewed included former concentration camp prisoners, survivors who as children were part of the Kindertransport set up before World War II by Jewish organizations to send unaccompanied minors to Palestine, England, and the United States, and second-generation survivors’ children. There were five women and eight men between the ages of forty-five and ninety years of age.
Interviews were conducted in respondents’ homes and were about one and one-half hours long. Four respondents also provided tapes of them filmed by the Irving Spielberg Holocaust Memorial Project. These were viewed and returned. The author conducted a content analysis to determine major themes related to what behaviors participants believed they used to survive the Holocaust, and to elicit what factors they thought contributed to their resilience.
Findings: Major Themes
The participants were first asked about the events leading up to the Holocaust. The content analysis revealed that most respondents experienced an initial response of anger and disbelief. Their shock is described by Harry as follows: “I was born in 1920 in a small German town with eleven Jewish families. I played and lived with others in the town. Friends were both Jews and non-Jews. . . . People thought Hitler would last for a few years and life would return to normal.” Similarly, Fritz recounted,
My family lived in that part of Germany since the 1500s. We were middle class, and owned a dry goods store. Starting in 1935, our store was boycotted. It was ransacked. Jewish families had to fill out a questionnaire itemizing their household belongings.
Alex also recalled, “We lived in a rural area. Dad owned land and kept a storeroom. Our family served in the Hungarian army. When the World War II anti-semitism began, we took our uniforms off.” According to Lou, “I saw how life changed for Jews well before the war. Businesses were lost, prayer books burned. There was intimidation at school. My father defended me with his butcher’s hook. My teacher befriended me. I chose to stay together with my sister and to help her survive.”
At the same time, another key theme in the content analysis was the importance of local residents who befriended and assisted survivor families. For example, “Local village people helped me. See how many more could have been saved?” or “Farmers left food at the back door.” “People hid my father. Then he brought me to Paris to hide with him.”
Some of the respondents recalled that their parents chose for them to be part of the Kindertransport program. Although survivors felt a deep sense of loss when they separated from their families, interviewees also expressed their resolve. Fritz recalled his departure to the United States: “I cried bitterly as I left. (I thought I would never see my family again). I took my quota number and left”. Eva declared her resolution and her current coping strategy of helping others:
You have a big job writing about resilience [she tells the author]. Kids today [in inner cities] are living their own personal Holocaust. It is a shame because all children need nurturing. When I speak to children at inner city schools, I tell them about the Holocaust. I tell them they must give up being a victim. They must find out what they want to do and be, and do it. I was lucky because I had a secure home life until I was thirteen when I was sent to England. When I arrived, I had the longest cry, and then decided to rise to the occasion.
Each girl was given a room and food to eat. The English brought us over, and the rest was up to us. We had to work to support ourselves. I wanted to work at the Bristol Aircraft Factory because they were making arms to fight Germany. I kept going back to the foreman of the company until he gave me the job. All the other girls with me in the rooming house (16) worked and grew up to be productive.
For those participants who spent a number of years in concentration camps, their interviews indicated that the beginning of their internment was the most difficult. Esther spoke of being “numb and living a day at a time;” Lou echoed this: “Your brains don’t work. First you want to die. Then you want to survive. You don’t want to make many bonds.” As the interviews progressed, the content foreshadowed the adaptive strategies that slowly developed among people who hadn’t ever thought of doing such things: Lou declared, “I later learned that I could steal. I could conduct sabotage. I sabotaged the submarine parts in the work camp. I put sand in them to break the electrical connections. They never knew, it was fun!” According to Blanche who also voiced her outright determination to survive the Holocaust, “Why wait for the gas chambers?” Still others spoke of trying tricks and subterfuge. “My sister took first communion to hide.” “ I was just thinking of where to hide.”
Another major theme was the resolve to obtain basic necessities. The importance of basic security to survivor well-being was attested to by Bruno Bettelheim (1943), who spent one year as a political prisoner at the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. He recounted that prisoners were supplied a minimum amount of food as an attempt to break strong civilian resistance. This theme of resistance was best expressed by Esther who said,
You don’t know what you will do until you get there. I didn’t know I could sneak food. But I just dropped off of the lines on the way to the work camp to get food so my family wouldn’t starve. People ask if I was afraid. No, I just did it. So if they catch me, so what? I was getting food for my sister.
An analysis of participant responses confirmed that survivors recalled that they made choices and practiced inner control. According to Ernie, “Do what needs to be done. Yes, I am a problem-solver.” Lou said, “I made the perfect plan to hide in a pot stove.” Emmanuel recalled that, “you put it in your mind to achieve a goal.” According to Eva, “To be resilient, you have to realize that everyday you make choices. . . You are in control of your life. . . You have to change your thinking! No, you are not worthless! You are a person.”
Remarkably, the analysis of interview responses showed positive themes such as survivors who made a conscious decision to go on living, to celebrate life, and to think positively about themselves. Respondent statements are consistent with the eyewitness accounts of Victor Frankkl (1984 ) who validated that concentration camp prisoners were able to transcend their misery and find meaning in everyday life. According to Ernie, “I don’t dwell on the fact that I survived. I’m not preoccupied. Do all you can do. Go on living.” Dee submitted, “You have to have purpose and meaning. In addition, survivor responses were consistent with findings that suggest that religion may provide meaning and serve as a major protective factor (Ellison, 1993). For example, Alex believed that, “luck and God saved me.”
On the other hand, for some giving meaning to the events of the war remained a major preoccupation. Dee, a second generation survivor had her doubts: “My parents longed for the good old days. They go to work, have a home, and raise a family. Yet, there is unresolved grief. The Holocaust was genocide. It ca not be reframed.” According to Emmanuel, “I read a hundred books trying to find an answer. I was duped as a younger person. Now it is like a magnetic force pulling me to find an answer.” He also declared his doubts about established religion, “Where was God then? Was he asleep?”
When asked to what they attributed their persistence, respondents gave multiple answers. The interviews disclosed that one of the most important factors related to endurance was family. Lou described how he made it to the end of the war because, “I was going to save my sister. You have a family. You have to go on with life. Today, I live for my grandchildren.” The importance of community and collective responsibility was also noted in the analysis. According to Esther, even in the ghetto, government was created. You know like forming an agency. You’re alive and have to live. You set up a society. You settle down. You find a job–my sister and I became [cloth] trimmers. Even a trip in summer was planned for children to swim. Of course, you had no privacy.
Several participants reiterated that the best part of survival was to give testimony. Ernie, an unaccompanied minor educated in the United States, joined the military and later was in the intelligence. “The best day of my life was delivering Nazi prisoners to Nuremberg. I felt like a million dollars seeing them go to trial. That was my revenge. Yet, you can’t hate a people. Only individual bastards. I continue to keep up with historical archives”. Whereas Lou was very pleased to participate in Irving Spielberg’s Memorial Taping project, “What really makes me angry is the denial of the Holocaust. I bring you living proof. I wanted to live as my revenge.”
Analysis revealed that, following the war, respondents endeavored to put their lives back together. Harry, an unaccompanied minor who later joined the air force, recollected that he went back to his hometown in Germany where ironically he was wined and dined by the very people he bombed. He thought, “You didn’t get me. I was not going to hide.-- I did not apologize.” Most respondents found that supportive families and participation in Jewish organizations allowed them to renew their lives. “Your home life matters.” “You have to be part of a community.” “I am proud of my service on boards of Jewish organizations and giving fifteen percent of my income to charity every year.”
Work life also was important to adaptation: Emmanuel said with pride, “I had a wonderful work life and was very successful at tool and dye making. I have a hobby and make artistic metal symbols of my survival. For example, a dagger symbolizes that we shouldn’t go out like a lamb.” Eva’s conclusion spoke for all the respondents, “Resilience is not looking backwards, but looking forward. The ability to pick yourself up is innate.”
Implications for Social Work Practice
Most of what we know about Holocaust survivors is based on case studies of the 1960's and 1970's which drew heavily on Freudian and neo-Freudian theory (Hodgkins & Douglas, 1984). Mental health professionals often depicted survivors, who were usually diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as depressed and in a state of ongoing grief (Rosenberg, 1984). Practitioners focused on the survivors’ declining mental defenses and physical prowess, and speculated about their suitability for psychodynamic psychotherapy (Abramovitz et al., 1994; Wardi, 1994; Weiss & Natan, 1994). Because of the horrifying events they heard about from their clients, professionals were pessimistic about survivors’ future (Chodoff, 1975; Weiss & Durst, 1994).
Over the years, some survivors have expressed what they went through during the Holocaust in books, plays, paintings, photographs, and even compilations of recipes. At the same time, many survivors felt that they could not reveal their experiences. The Holocaust was a taboo topic. This silence was based in part on the people in the U.S.’s wish to forget the terror of World War II, and the survivors’ need to avoid a preoccupation with their past (Hodgkins & Douglas, 1984). According to (Rosenbloom, 1995), “people talked little about it and wanted to know even less” (p. 568).
Attitudes about survivors and their treatment potential have slowly changed, particularly as a psychodynamic approach to PTSD was seen to have little utility (Hodgkins & Douglas, 1984), and therapist began to adopt a strengths perspective (Saleebey, 1997). For example, during the mid-1980s, Rosenberg (1984) pointed out that “early researchers sought to identify clinical pathologies among survivors. In focusing on these debilitating effects, the analysts failed to recognize the importance of reference group influence, [namely] cultural and social histories” (p. 934). Hodgkins and Douglas (1984 ) made a similar argument, stating that the “social and psychological dynamics of successful adjustment to life after the traumatic Holocaust experience by the majority of survivors has largely been ignored” (p. 894). Such theorists called for a reevaluation or reconceptualization of survivor experiences “as a triumph of human spirit and adaptability” (Rosenberg, 1984, p. 935).
These theoretical changes have coincided with changes in survivors’ attitudes. Some of the study respondents who also felt that there was a “conspiracy of silence” were inspired to tell their stories by the Irving Spielberg Taping Project. Another respondent, a third-generation survivor, felt it was important to seek mental health treatment when needed, and “to know about your own condition and medication”. She also said, “practitioners should listen closely and reaffirm client stories without worrying about having an answer that is a solution.”
Older adulthood is also a time when reminiscing and reviewing life tends to occur naturally (Butler, 1963). Therefore, it would not be surprising if survivors wanted to share their stories. Life review may be stressful to Holocaust survivors as they may reexperience a sense of abandonment, isolation, and dehumanization. However, for those who are bearing witness, as in the case of many of these respondents, survivors possess an ability to reconstruct memory in such a way that they feel a sense of connection to the past and present, and establish the significance of their lives. They also develop an understanding of their ability to develop and change and to reconcile themselves with history (Bar-Tur & Levy-Shiff, 1993).
“Opportunities for collective commemorations are important and should be facilitated” (Rosenbloom, 1995, p. 575). Increasingly the literature has called for giving clients the opportunity to recall their past experiences as a constructive part of medical and psychosocial treatment (Zilberfein & Eskin, 1992). Because of the many positive research findings, theorists have turned to the growing knowledge-base about the nature of resilience for mental health practice guidelines (Begun, 1993; Fraser, Richman, & Galinsky, 1999). For example, following her study of children who survived the Holocaust, Moskovitz (1983) concluded that practitioners needed to rethink the idea that adversity inevitably leads to negative outcomes. She argued that, contrary to popular notions, we learn powerfully from these lives that lifelong emotional disability does not automatically follow early trauma. . . [Rather,] what happens later matters enormously. Whether it is the confidence of a teacher, the excitement of new sexual urges, new vocational interests, or a changed social milieu, the interaction can trigger new growth. (p. 201)
Resilience-based approaches to treatment are popular among practitioners who believe that people posses the capacity for self-healing or may have environmental resources that can be cultivated (Lifton, 1993; Walsh, 1999; Wolin & Wolin, 1993,5). Such therapists feel that when given positive support, clients have the inherent power to transform their own lives (Weick, Rapp, Sullivan, & Kisthardy, 1989). To assess resilience, practitioners need an evaluation of the client’s coping capacity. To promote resilience, practitioners must consider strategies that affect internal and external resources (Table 2). In this sense, resilience is part of social work’s strengths perspective (Saleebey, 1997), and is gaining favor among narrative or social constructivist therapists (Borden, 1992; Neimeyer & Stewart, 1996).
Following traumatic or adverse events, survivors are faced with the challenge of coping with the influences of change and loss. This study suggests that a practitioner’s foremost decision is how best to use a strengths perspective to restore and maintain the client’s sense of coherence and continuity (Borden, 1992). Adaptation after loss involves establishing a therapeutic alliance based on client autonomy, choice, and potential. New posttraumatic therapies also require that clients be given the opportunity to heal by making meaning of the event, and having people listen and accept their stories.
World War II Nazi concentration camp prisoners were part of history’s largest, systematic, state-sponsored genocides. Many of the survivors had been turned into tools for medical experimentation, and suffered malnutrition and starvation. They saw their loved ones die. Yet, their actions were characterized by purpose, determination, caring, and often, bravery. The study documents that resilience can come about even under extreme circumstances, and that effective communities can be sustained in the most severe situations. Survivors also substantiated their ability to return to some semblance of a normal life. To achieve this goal while in the ghettos or concentration camps, they set up governmental structure and schools, performed concerts, or wrote poetry (Berger, 2000). This study underscores the idea that we must remember that survivors were resilient:
[Focusing on older Holocaust survivors] only as damaged individuals further adds to their sense of humiliation and shame. . . Survivors should be approached as individuals who have also shown the capacity for strength. They are certainly in need of as much strength as possible to cope with the additional crisis of aging.
(Cohen, 1991, p. 231)
References
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Table 1- Key Processes in Family Resilience
Belief Systems
Making meaning of adversity
· Affiliative value: resilience as relationally based
· Family life cycle orientation: normalizing, contextualizing adversity and distress
· Sense of coherence: crisis as meaning, comprehensible, manageable challenge
· Appraisal of crisis, distress, and recovery: facilitative versus constraining beliefs
Positive outlook
· Active initiative and perseverance
· Courage and en-courage-ment
· Sustaining hope, optimistic view: confidence in overcoming odds
· Focusing on strengths and potential
· Mastering the possible; accepting what can’t be changed
Transcendence and spirituality
· Larger values, purpose
· Spirituality; faith, communion, rituals
· Inspiration: envisioning new possibilities; creativity; heroes
· Transformation: learning and growth from adversity
Organizational Patterns
Flexibility
· Capacity to change; rebounding, reorganizing, adapting to fit challenges over time
· Counterbalancing by stability; continuity, dependability through disruption
Connectedness
· Mutual support, collaboration, and commitment
· Respect for individual needs, differences, and boundaries
· Strong leadership; nurturing, protecting, guiding children and vulnerable members
· Varied family forms; cooperative parenting/caregiving teams
· Couple/coparent relationship; equal partners
· Seeking reconnection, reconciliation of troubled relationships
Social and economic resources
Mobilizing extended kin and social support; community networks
Building financial security; balancing work and family strains
Communication Processes
Clarity
· Clear, consistent messages (words and actions)
· Clarification of ambiguous situation; truth-seeking/truth-speaking
Open emotional expression
· Sharing range of feelings (joy and pain; hopes and fears)
· Mutual empathy; tolerance for differences
· Responsibility for own feelings, behavior; avoid blaming
· Pleasurable interactions; humor
Collaborative problem-solving
· Creative brainstorming; resourcefulness
· Shared decision making; negotiation, fairness, reciprocity
· Conflict resolution
· Focusing on goals; taking concrete steps; building on success; learning from failure
· Proactive stance; Preventing problems, crises; preparing for future challenges
Walsh, F. (1998). Strengthening Family Resilience. New York: Guilford Press, p. 133
Table 2 - Practice Guidelines
Assessment. To assess resilience, practitioners need to evaluate a client’s coping capacity and explore internal and external resources. The internal or individual characteristics may include self-esteem, trust, autonomy, strength, and hope, and interpersonal abilities such as social skills, communication, humor, problem-solving, and impulse control. External factors explored may involve environmental supports and resources, such as trusting relationships and role models; access to health, education, welfare, and safety services; stable family and school environments, and religious affiliation (Grotberg, 1995).
Intervention. To promote resilience, practitioners must consider multisystemic strategies appropriate to a client’s life context and position across the life course. Based on an assessment of client needs and opportunity, practitioners may use interventions that
· provide for basic needs, safety, food, water, electricity
· help clients access their own resources
· stabilize and normalize the situation
· identify the possible; tap intrinsic worth
· illuminate opportunities
· attend to diversity, respect ethnicity, gender, race, and so forth
· challenge oppressive situations, seek equity, and combat negative environmental messages
· motivate and engage clients by focusing on strengths
· build personal capacity
· enhance client self-awareness
· work to clarify meaning and purpose of events
· tap innate individual abilities
· facilitate problem-solving abilities
· tap into wellness programs
· deal with institutional belief systems
· work with social supports, mentors, peers, clergy, and teachers
· identify community stakeholders
· engage in community action strategies
· enhance community power
Greene, R. R. (in press). Resilience theory and research for social work practice. Washington, DC: NASW.