Print
EmailMemory, Family Stories and Intergenerational Communication
Ruth Goodman, M.S.W., C.S.W.
Senior Social Worker, Jewish Home for the Aged
Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Ontario
Ph.D. studies in Sociology, in progress, York University, Toronto.
The Presence of the Absence: International Holocaust Conference for Eyewitnesses and Descendants of "both sides". September 1-3, 1999.
Vienna, Austria.
Introduction
Since hearing about this gathering, and the collaboration of people in England, Germany and Austria, I was drawn to being engaged in the dialogues, conversations and perspectives that have evolved from the sponsoring groups initiatives. My family roots span Poland, Vienna, England, and North America, so my own sense of self integrates formative experiences in different countries. Coming to Vienna to speak about the impact of the Nazi regime on my family and on the families with whom I work as a Social Worker, has symbolic importance for me. The themes of this conference are ones that I have struggled with personally and professionally for many years. As an immigrant, having a critical and inquiring stance regarding concepts of identity, and having a nuanced understanding of memory, as it is remembered and transmitted, are integral parts of my life. A new and important experience is possible for me here, where the second generation of Survivors, victims and perpetrators come together to talk, listen and reflect.
Being in Vienna, as for many of you, has personal resonance. My parents grew up here. A year after they married in 1937, they were able to flee to England, and then after the War, to New York City. On my last trip to Vienna, in 1995, with my daughter, I remember walking around and thinking that I could have been a Wienerin if the war hadn't happened. A different life, a different destiny. Dislocation, uprootedness, refugee status and identity, resettlement, all these experiences were part of my parents and our family's life. I've been shaped by the memories my parents had of Vienna, by the stories they told of their life here before 1938, the frantic search to find a country to go to, and their ongoing attempts to make a new life in Manchester, and then in New York. As the years passed, certain memories persisted, some stories incorporated ongoing reflections, while some beliefs continued to be meaningfully embedded in the core of their identities.
I've been to Vienna a few times during the last ten years. Each time I have wondered about the degree of acceptance and tolerance of immigrants Gastarbeiters here. Are the doors open for them here? As people in Vienna and Austria grapple more openly now with the events during the Nazi regime and post-war, possibilities emerge for talking about and understanding the familial and collective silences, denials, shame and suffering that individuals endured. Acknowledgement of complicity during those times is a first step. A colleague of mine, a physician, whose research is on the role of medicine in the Third Reich, and the implications for the medical profession today, spoke at a Symposium at the Vienna Psychiatric Hospital here in Vienna last year. He said that the University of Vienna is the first university to acknowledge to the world its role in the Third Reich. It is the City of Vienna that appears to be the first legal jurisdiction to publicly declare a responsibility for the victims of medical abuse during the Hitler regime. Attempts are being made in this city to address the consequences of medicine in the Hitler era (Seidelman, 1998).
What I'd like to do this afternoon is weave together my personal and professional experience in working with Jewish older people and their families. In the process of trying to understand Survivor families, I reflected on my own recollections and interpretations of my childhood and adulthood, and my relationships with my parents and extended kin. Shifts in my own thinking about the evolving nature of transmitted memory and holocaust consciousness occurred as I listened to and reflected on the stories and beliefs of a number of second generation sons and daughters.
I'll speak first about the nature of family stories, processes we are all a part of, and of the importance of the listener and the larger social context. Then I'll speak about my family history, noting the salient themes in my parents’ life. I'll move on to give you a sense of aging Survivors with memory loss, emphasizing the care needed in disentangling thought processes related to increased losses, from the memories and stories of the past. I'll address the heterogeneity of Survivors, their relationships with their children, and the transmission of values and belief systems within the family.
My family history and my own experiences of immigration have given me particular insights into the lives and struggles of aging Survivors and their children. At the same time, they reflect diverse experiences and perceptions, and want acknowledgement for the fullness of their lives. Their identities are multi-faceted. They should not be seen only through the prism of a "Survivor" identity.
As a Social Worker in a Jewish Geriatric Centre in Toronto, Canada, I am engaged with older people who have sustained many losses, yet remain proud of their accomplishments in work and family life. They have lived through the upheavals of war and the destruction of their way of life in Europe. They then mobilized their energies in rebuilding their lives in another country. They are complex people, shaped by many experiences. Their individual life histories are varied, and meanings and interpretations given to experiences emerge in the recounting of stories and memories. The expectations of the narrator and the listener are shaped by the cultural discourses about Survivors that have evolved. Stories reflect the understanding of past events within the framework of the narrators present social situation. The listener in all these conversations is important; bringing a perspective and a desire to learn. Being there to hear creates the possibility of a healing, transformative process.
Intrinsic to all families are a clustering of values, beliefs, myths and dreams that may be shared with others in the larger community and culture. Ways of understanding social and personal events are communicated to succeeding generations, as are ways of coping and acting. Life themes serve as an organizing principle for a coherent sense of identity, with aspirations, relationships and a sense of purpose in life intertwined.
Narratives
Psychologist Henry Greenspan states Survivors "make a story" from plots and meanings that are alien to the destruction itself. They are retrieved from elsewhere: from all the rest of who Survivors are, what they have lived, and what they remember. Survivors specific stories of the destruction as well as their own stories as Survivors are contextualized by the wider story of their life history . Their salient themes and identifications emerge from the normal circumstances of life. Some meanings are retained, some eroded, some altered. Their particular way of integrating their present experiences, their reflections and recounting, give shape to their story and their lives.
The stories and voices Survivors choose for their retelling are rooted in their particular life histories. And their recounting draws on the roots of ongoing speech and ongoing life. Survivors draw on themes, values, beliefs when they retell who they are and what they have lived. We all do the same in recounting our own lives. Retelling a memory as a story implies the narrator's ability to take some perspective on experience and give it significance and form.
Listening to Survivors
Aging Survivors are recounting their stories and their memories; child Survivors are writing about their experiences, their fragments of memory, and the second generation is grappling with the social, emotional and moral implications of their family's and the larger collective's history. The social context for these reflections has been changing; in particular during the past two decades. Many factors contributed to the upsurge of interest in the Holocaust and in Survivors. Survivalism, a culture of "victimization", and the prevalence of identity-politics, were cultural trends that had particular relevance in North America. Historian Peter Novick (1999), has recently raised concerns about the centrality of Holocaust consciousness to Jewish self-identity, noting the ways in which it is presently embedded in popular culture. He explores the shifts in the American construction of the WWII experience during the past 50 years. Novick chronicles how the Holocaust has moved from the margins to the center of how American Jews understand themselves and how they represent themselves to others. His controversial views merit reflection and discussion.
Psychologist Henry Greenspan, who has spent over twenty years in conversation with Survivors, suggests that the popular response to Survivors may be becoming increasingly ritualized, with more and more talk about Survivors but not necessarily more sustained talk with them. What is crucial for the Survivor is to be heard. What Survivors say, how they say it, depends in part on their perceptions of those listeners, as well as the ways the listeners have made their own hopes, fear, and expectations known. When the contexts of recounting are ritualized, such as one-time oral interviews, retelling is liable to remain superficial. What is needed is participation in developing and deepening conversations, and the revising and explaining that such conversation brings. (Greenspan, 1998).
Every story is implicitly a narrative of survival. Whatever was experienced can now be told with coherence and perspective. Intergenerational continuities emerge from these narratives. Family secrets, myths, messages, are legacies internalized in different ways by individual family members. Because we are all shaped by multiple influences, our identity is a complex construction. Individual memories are absorbed into familial and collective memories and some sense of congruence is sought. Dissonances can be recognized, ignored or reshaped. Historical narratives have had a profound impact on influencing the North American Jewish identity. A clear example is the transformation from being a "Displaced Person" post-war to being a "Holocaust Survivor" today.
Having faith and hope, and a desire to affirm a social and moral trust are essential components of stories of survival and resistance. Meanings and memories, and their inherent dialectic, are part of all stories.
These interweaving personal stories are the means by which identities are fashioned (Rosenwald and Ochberg, 1992). Life stories draw a connection between the events of yesterday and today. Life stories are the organization of experience, the assertion of meanings. In telling their stories, individuals assert the coherence of their lives. Their sense of identity emerges from this coherence. These narratives contribute to our sense of identity by establishing our relationships to others.
Dialogues, conversations, listening, reflecting, these are ways of being with one another that moves us all to the possibility of a restored sense of moral efficacy and social trust. Robert Jay Lifton (1988), identifies a principle of our shared humanity—what he calls the "Species Self"—which he describes as a psychological experience, the recognition in one's own sense of self, that one's particular self is bound up with every other self on the planet. An approach that seeks to reduce the barriers between "them" and "us". Which focuses on a community with mutual obligations to one another, a humane inclusiveness that tempers tribal identities and nationalistic fervour.
The Search For Value And Meaning
The stories we grow up with tell us about how our parents experienced certain events, the meanings and perceptions that are at the core of these experiences. The stories we remember tell us about the importance of certain themes, principles or morals that become instructive across generations. The portraits of families, in their uniqueness and shared attributes, suggest the importance of appreciating the heterogeneity of adaptability and of the restorative qualities of the human mind, the human body and spirit.
Viktor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist, has said that the search for value and meaning in the circumstances of one's life is the key to psychological well-being. Frankl lost all of his family in the concentration camp, but the one thing that couldn't be taken from him, he said, was the "last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. This spiritual freedom makes life meaningful and purposeful" (Frankl,1964). He gave eloquent testimony to the capability of some Auschwitz prisoners being able to discover meaning in their lives- if only in helping one another through the day- and that those discoveries were what gave them the will and strength to endure. He bore witness to the human potential to transform personal tragedy into a human achievement and responsible action. Engaging in instances of self-sacrifice, decency and altruism gave some meaning to the suffering and helped in coping with the moral and psychological ordeals (Rosenbloom, 1988).
My Story
Let me now briefly sketch some aspects of my own family history, and suggest some ways in which values and beliefs are communicated and understood within the family context. My father was born in Krakow in 1905, the youngest of seven children, the "baby" in his family of origin, a name that stayed with him until well into his eighties, as long as his older sisters were able to tease him and remind him of his junior status. The family moved to Vienna in 1916, during World War I, so my father's adolescence and young adulthood was spent in Vienna.
My mother was born in the Polish town of Przemysl in 1909, the oldest of three children. Her mother died shortly after the birth of her third child, when my mother was 5 years old. The family had moved to Vienna when her mother was ill, so that she could get medical care. As the oldest, and with her father working as a tailor, she increasingly assumed responsibilities of looking after her younger brother and sister.
My father lived in the 2nd district, on Odeongasse. My mother lived on Apostlegasse, in the 3rd district. My parents both went to the "Gymnasium", receiving a rigorous classical education, the value of which they often reminded my brother and I of during our public school years. They had a large circle of friends, Jewish and non-Jewish. They belonged to "Naturefreundin", a group that went hiking and skiiing in the Vienna Woods and the Alps. Some of my parents most cherished photographs, reflecting adventurous times, that I now have, are from this period in their lives. In talking about this time with me, they always emphasized their friendships with both Jewish and Gentile people, and the importance of cultural experiences.
My parents were married in 1937, and by then, the personal and collective threats were obvious. My father told us stories of being beat up many times because of his involvement in Jewish groups. Both my parents lost their jobs. It took my parents over four months to find a way to leave. In September, 1938, they obtained a visa to go to Manchester, England. The only family on my father's side, that remained in Vienna, was my father's mother and his second oldest sister, who in the late 30's, didn't want to leave. They wrote my father that on Kristallnacht, the S.S. came to her house looking for my parents to take them to a concentration camp. That became the fate of my grandmother and aunt in 1942. They had attempted to leave Vienna in the early 40's, but by then it was not possible. They were killed in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz in 1944.
One of the most enduring stories of my childhood, was the one of the circumstances of my birth. I was born in 1941 during the "blitz", in the North Manchester Maternity Home, and while I was being born, a German bomb fell right next door, leaving a huge crater. We came within a breadth of extinction.
As three of my father's sisters had managed to immigrate to the United States by 1945, my parents attempted to get visas. Due to the quota system, it was 1948 when we immigrated to New York City, coming on the Queen Mary. I was seven, my brother was two years old, and all my parents efforts were directed to the basics: my father in finding employment, which took him many months until he found work as a cutter of ladies coats; my mother in finding an apartment, which took over 6 months. I tagged along on many of those searches, and remember the smells and bareness of some of the flats we saw. The apartment my mother found, on the top floor of a building in Queens, with parquet floors and cross ventilation, and big oak trees lining the block, was seen as a miracle.
This was my parents third experience of being uprooted and re-establishing roots in a new community and new land. They were immigrants again, and that sense of being an "outsider" was something I remember from my childhood in Woodside, Queens. I grew up bilingual, my parents continued to speak German at home, and wanted me to answer in German, which I refused to do once I was about eight years old and wanting NOT to be an outsider. My parents' friends, both in the building and in the community, were mostly Austrian and German Jews, and there was a feeling of solidarity in the personal and political stories they shared. They supported one another in the stresses and obstacles of managing in a new country.
As urban Jews, they gradually gravitated to the cultural opportunities in New York, and this provided much pleasure and meaning for them. My father became involved with the ILGWU, continuing his affirmation of the importance of social justice. Prominent among my parents needs was that of the importance of feeling secure, safe, and not wanting to take certain kinds of risks, such as buying a house, about which they had no experience with and truly felt like "greenhorns." They felt both intimidated and wanting to challenge authority, as it affected the texture of day-to-day life.
These experiences contributed to ongoing feelings of being immigrants. Their sense of belonging was allied with other immigrants like themselves. All their efforts were for their two children, and scholarly attainment was assumed. At times,there was a general sense of mistrust and suspiciousness of others that was conveyed, as well as a desire to be accepted by others combined with a cynicism regarding their intentions. Perhaps to compensate for what I perceived about my parents perspective towards others, I tended to trust people, whether naively or because I wanted to focus on positive possibilities.
My parents fourth uprootedness upon retirement was one guided by clear preferences and desires. Moving from New York to Berkeley, California, opened up new experiences for them. A more fulfilling connection with the local Jewish community, involvement in volunteer and progressive political work, and enduring friendships within a large group of German and Viennese Jews. Interpersonal antagonisms and grudges were preserved and seemed to escalate as their health declined. The onset of serious health problems brought a fierce need to stay in control, to make their own decisions and not be dependent on others for help.
I've tried to give you a glimpse into my family of origin, to situate part of the lens through which I have experienced working with older people of my parents generation. My own adult experience of moving and immigration has also shaped the way I see the world.
Aging Survivors
I would now like to share with you some insights gained from over twenty years of work with Jewish families in Toronto. In the Jewish Home for the Aged at Baycrest, about 25% of the 372 residents (average age of eighty five), are Holocaust Survivors. Most of the residents have significant cognitive impairments, as well as physical losses. I'm involved in assessment, counselling and group work services for residents and families, and educational services for staff and community. Let me say a few words now on how cognitive changes impacts on aging Survivors.
Aging Survivors With Cognitive Loss
Most older people maintain a sense of continuity and meaning that helps them cope with cognitive and physical changes. This meaning making is a creative, symbolic process, drawing meaning from the past, interpreting and recreating it as a resource for being in the present. (Kaufman, 1986). They retain a sense of what happened to them during the war years, of the dispersion of their families, the death of relatives, the immigration to Canada, and the years of adjustment here. Depending on the nature and severity of their cognitive loss, they will experience their functional losses in different ways.
For some, the experiences of the war years have been overshadowed by many years of accomplishments; for others, the loss of family, the experience of being immigrants, of continual readjustments, of not fitting in with the mainstream culture, continues to be part of their consciousness. The adjustments to physical and cognitive losses are experienced within a communal context, which has both restrictive and supportive features.
With increased cognitive losses comes the need for assistance and supervision of others. Becoming dependent on others, having one's vulnerabilities observed can mean different things for Survivors. For some, the sense of security and direct attention given is very reassuring. For others, dependence on others is experienced as an invasion of privacy, or with fear and misperceptions, and care is resisted. Some of the behaviours often associated with increased cognitive loss, such as hoarding, preoccupation with food, and the need for continual reassurance and information to allay anxieties, can take on additional meaning, but not necessarily, for Survivors. Caregivers need to be aware of the possible meaning of certain behaviours, and equally careful not to ascribe every fearful or demanding behaviour to the experience of the Holocaust.
Within an institutional setting, issues of trust, security, sense of control and autonomy, relationship to authority, and justice and equity are prominent in the developing relationship between the staff and aging Survivors and their family members. The degree of flexibility regarding bathing practices, routines, clinic appointments entailing waiting periods and apprehension, are a few of the areas of institutional life that need thoughtful attention.
Paying attention to their present construction of their social world, and the ways in which they themselves make connections to their earlier experiences, is what is paramount in trying to understand how they are interpreting their day-to-day life in a Home for the Aged. Aging Survivors with cognitive loss integrate their war-time experiences into their sense of who they are now, and convey the importance of certain principles which are meaningful to them. It is through the lens of these moral principles that they interpret their relational world now. Their continuing relationship with others - family members, caring staff, and other residents- affirms their personhood. Knowing that others are caring about them provides reassurance and security. For others, such care evokes a sense of loss, a lack of autonomy and loss of control.
One woman, born in Czechoslovakia, was interned in a displaced persons camp for five years, her husband serving in the British Army. Reunited with her husband in Prague in 1945, they immigrated to Canada in 1953. Living in Baycrest since 1994, she sees herself as a cosmopolitan and well-read person. Still able to manage her self-care, always appreciative of staff's attention, she will admonish other residents who complain that we should all be grateful that good caregivers and services are available. After being detained in a camp, she is continually grateful for the helpfulness of staff. She repeats this comparison often, as justification for being accommodating with others and taking pleasures in daily experiences like walking and being outdoors. She derives a sense of security from knowing someone will be there for help if needed.
Dementia has qualities inherent to its manifestation which allow people "afflicted" with the illness to protect themselves from the experience of "being ill". They do not always see themselves as suffering from a chronic disease, but rather that they have had to adjust to changed circumstances and abilities. A sense of suffering is not always present.
Aging Survivors with increased changes in cognitive capacities will experience these losses in different ways, some accepting help graciously, others very suspicious of any medication, intimate care, or of anyone intruding on their sense of social space.
Family Cultures
Different kinds of family cultures emerged, depending on the Survivors personality, their pre-war history, post-war adaptability, their experiences during the war and their continuing perceptions of the Holocaust. Most Survivors I know at Baycrest reflect endurance, resourcefulness, and strength. Their vulnerabilities are present as well, usually becoming more visible as they need more care. The capacity to form meaningful social relationships seems to me to be a key element in a Survivor’s capacity to have a continually evolving sense of purpose in life, and to derive meaning from their experiences. Having a sense of hope and an ability to find pleasure in ordinary activities indicates significant resilience.
Survivors are a heterogeneous group. Where they lived, their cultural background, how old they were when the war started, their personalities, their particular experiences during the war, immigration and resettlement, need to be integrated and understood in order to support them in ongoing relationships and experiences in a communal setting. It would be important to know if they were religious, ethnically conscious, or assimilated Jews, living in cities or small towns. The degree of trauma experienced differed for concentration camp Survivors, those in the resistance movements, in ghettos, those in hiding or living as Christians, and those who fled Germany and Austria. The degree to which Survivors mobilized their own inner resources and have used social and community resources, will influence the kinds of belief systems and ways of understanding the world that they pass on to their children.
Using the term Holocaust Survivor is useful in alerting us to the importance of knowing the person's particular social history and experiences during the war years and after. As well as seeing examples of adaptability and resilience, we have to pay attention to vulnerabilities and symptoms of fear, distress or isolation. The interpersonal conditions and demands prevailing during the war, their present circumstances and their sense of social connection at the time of recollection, are both crucial in shaping their narrative of the past. The Survivor must be viewed in their individual context and in terms of the meaning that a particular Holocaust experience had for a particular Survivor. As important an event as the Holocaust is in the Survivors's life, it is not necessarily to be viewed as the central organizing psychological event with which everything else interacts ( Marcus and Rosenberg, 1988).
From the perspective of the Survivor, generalizations that assume a homogenous population are misleading, and fail to communicate the actual varied experiences (Berger, 1988). The unique and shared experiences, and the particular coping abilities of each person, both during and after the war, influence how the aging Survivor deals with losses. We have to be sensitive to the use of the term "Survivor", which might also operate to distance and separate this group of people from others in ways that increase social distance and mitigate against developing bonds of a shared humanity. Mental health practitioners should be particularly attuned to doing whatever we can to reduce the perception of social distance between people, to guard against focusing on pathology instead of validating strengths. We have to be particularly careful as professionals not to make assumptions that aging Survivors will suffer more than non-Survivors upon institutionalization. It is a significant transition for every older person. Assumptions of pathology and damage have to be countered by understanding the adaptive, integrative forces that helped so many Survivors rebuild their lives after years of deprivation. Many Survivors demonstrate an extraordinary resourcefulness, creativity, acceptance of and commitment to life, capacity for survival, and a willingness to endure (Peskin, 1981). We need to understand how these strengths are transmitted from parents to children (Bistritz, 1988).
Children Of Survivors
I want to turn now to the experiences and perceptions of children of Survivors. The sons and daughters that I interviewed all spoke of the profound impact that the war had on their parents, and of the continuing legacy of particular beliefs and ways of relating both within and outside the family. The manner in which these beliefs, morals, social and world views are communicated to their children is varied as well.
Two daughters with whom I had an involved counselling relationship for several years, saw their parents in similar as well as divergent ways, given the 18 year age difference between the siblings. One was born in 1940, while her parents were part of the French underground. It was their mothers ingenuity, fearlessness, and courage that saved her husband's life by smuggling a knife into some food she brought him in Drancy. He used that to cut a hole in the wall of a train taking him and others to Auschwitz. He was one of three men who were able to escape from the convoy. Of note, is that in the past year, he has asked that his daughters join with him to commemorate that day of escape. His daughter created a plaque to give him, to honour his courage. It symbolizes his uniqueness. Within the context of his family, he is unique, while in relation to the outside world, he feels alone. Remembering his wartime experiences ( he also fought against Franco in Spain as part of the International Brigade), they are a source of pride, but it keeps him separate, feeling alone among Jews and non-Jews.
Their mother is seen by both daughters as strong-willed, energetic, resilient, generous, adaptable, overcoming adversity and loss. A strong sense of social justice permeated the family home. A world view embracing socialist ideals was communicated through everyday choices and actions. A strong work ethic consumed their years after resettlement in Toronto in the 1950's. They didn't feel socially comfortable nor have a sense of belonging in the larger community. They felt more at ease with Italian workers who were in the fruit and produce trade with them.
Communication within the family was described as being estranged, work being a priority. While dealing effectively with adversities in relating to social conditions, they endured stress between them, dwelling on little things that continually annoyed the other. The mother's tendency to worry, which the daughter recalls from her childhood, was somewhat moderated after her mother began showing signs of memory loss. As she needed more care, she began to feel useful and engaged in helping others. With people all around her, she got the attention she craved and benefitted from. These years in Baycrest were experienced positively by her. Although she initially had the energies and interests to be involved with social activities, her daughters were simultaneously trying to emotionally comprehend the significance of her cognitive losses coupled with the social connectedness that sustained her. Their sense of their mother as a resourceful and helpful person brought them some measure of comfort in witnessing the gradual loss of cognitive abilities.
The daughters see the transmission of several patterns between the generations. Each generation has left their family home in their late teens, and initially not kept in touch. The loss of relationships with grand-parents was felt. The immigration experience has been central, and the younger daughter who was born in Canada feels she has had a sheltered life, and is seriously exploring opportunities to live elsewhere, seeing it as an enriching move. All important occasions in the family are now commemorated. All their remembered stories of their parents are heroic in nature, and they cherish these stories. Their parents are always victorious. There are no stories of suffering that the daughters can recall.
Here's a portrait of another family.
Drawing from interviews with two sons, eloquent testimony emerges regarding the transmission of values, beliefs and world view from their parents. Their social and psychological well-being are enmeshed with understandings of the past. Both sons were born in Prague after the war, their father having served in the Czech unit of the British Army in Libya and then Russia. Maintaining their Jewish heritage became important to their father after the war, even though these activities incured some risk in Prague. They were always made aware they were Jewish, and to be proud of their inheritance. The oldest son's Bar Mitzvah was the first one held in Prague after the war. Their father always stood up for matters of principles, and took extreme risks in challenging authority. He had a strong sense of himself, and felt strengthened by his experience in the military. Their father wrote a book, "A Veteran's Memoirs", and gave it to his eldest son following his high school graduation.
Following immigration to Canada in 1968, the sons did not feel they belonged, found it difficult to make friends, and felt their parents adjusted easier as they formed friendships with other immigrants. What stood out for one son, was the forms of segregation that existed in Toronto. Although their family joined a synagogue, they didn't feel welcomed and felt socially inferior. People belonged to churches, synagogues, clubs, and people weren't open to form friendships with newcomers. The other son continued membership in the synagogue until this past year, never feeling he "belonged" in the intervening thirty years.
Maintaining their parents legacy is critically important to the sons. One son, who quotes his grandfather's words that "Jewishness is passed on through the stomach" is a Chef, is the one responsible for maintaining all the holiday celebrations and meals. He also continues with his father's correspondence, keeping in touch with family who were dispersed all over the world. The other son is the family archivist, continuing a tradition since his boyhood of having engaging discussions with his father about politics, philosophy, history and literature. A major disappointment in his life is that, without children of his own, he'll not be able to pass on the legacy of his family. The texture of his day-to-day life today, is very much influenced by his parents experiences during the war and all that he himself remembers since childhood. He attributes much of the complex mental health issues that he faces as an indirect result of the Holocaust. In his own words, he lives a sense of hurt, of horror, of wrongdoing. He is continually reminded of the potential for "thugs" to inflict harm, and sees instances of both personal and societal damage in Bosnia and Kosovo. He feels a strong sense of social pain and social injustice as a result of these genocidal actions. Canadian discussions about immigration always remind him of the book, "None is to Many", which accurately described Canada's policy during World WarII.
Carrying on his family's legacy is seen as a burden as well, as he sees nothing positive in current events, with thuggish behavior towards people ending in killings. He does have a sense of belonging in Toronto, but still feels most happy when he is in Prague. He feels language has alot to do with this, as you are always identified by others by your accent.
The symbolism of everyday events is important to this family. One son recounts several instances of non-Jewish people helping their family on their journey of emigration, initially in Vienna, and then in Toronto. He notes that it was non-Jews who reached out to them then. The established Jewish community represented segregation to them. Although he saw himself as a Canadian after awhile, others saw him as an immigrant. On a visit to Prague recently, one son misplaced his passport, and recounted his intense sense of personal and historical vulnerability, a momentary glimpse of what it must have felt like during the Holocaust not to have the documents that allowed you to leave.
Their father, who they see as a Rennaisance man, with a broad education in the Humanities, with a love of ideas, has adapted to living at Baycrest fairly well. A scholarly, private person, he finds meaning in going "downtown", the public atrium on the main floor of the Home, where there are plants, fishtanks, people milling about and talking.
Themes Across The Generations
We can see that a sense of connectedness, of continuity, belongingness, are experienced and articulated in different ways by children of Survivors. Survivors and their children have areas of vulnerability and resilience, and adaptational skills in interpersonal areas. Their physical and mental well-being, their identification with spiritual, religious, or cultural values, and their political outlook will shape how they interpret and respond to ongoing changes.
In reflected on my conversations with children of Survivors, I notice how the stories and memories of their parents have been incorporated into family stories. These stories, honouring the strength and resilience of their parents, are continually evolving. Incorporating their parent's illness, loss and declining function into the ongoing life of the adult children, serves to evoke admiration for their parents earlier struggles, decisions and dislocation. Personality attributes persist into old age, and children take comfort from seeing that their parent's way of relating to others now is similar to how they managed years ago. Issues of earlier disagreements are reinterpreted and placed in a more nuanced context. In fact, many second generation sons and daughters feel their parents experienced more hardships in the resettlement process in Canada, feeling like refugees and different for a long time. In a sense, dislocation during wartime was expected. Harder to adjust to were feelings of being an outsider in their new country.
As their parents age and sustain increased losses, many adult children acknowledge their parents strengths and attributes, and interpret earlier strains within the family in different ways. To the extent that they are able to talk about such tensions, their insights enrich their relationships. Honouring their parents social and moral values allows their children to feel a connection between their past and their future.
Discussions about the transmission of trauma need to clarify that it is the memories of traumatic events that are communicated to the next generation, not the trauma itself. Clearly, theses pivotal memories shape understanding, and become part of the family dynamics and family culture, but they are experienced distinctly by each family member.
Aaron Hass, in his interviews with children of Survivors, found that some of them, very conscious of their own and their parent's psychological response to the Holocaust, all too often seemed to have little interest in learning about the historical, political and cultural factors that allowed the Nazis to take power. The children felt their emotional knowledge was sufficient. An exclusive emotional response by the second generation, Hass cautions, is insufficient to guard against forces of hate and intolerance in our society (Hass, 1990).
On a visit with my daughter, to Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1995, I was overwhelmed by two things: the loss of centuries of Jewish cultural vitality; and the vast methodical apparatus of killing that was executed by the Nazis. I have come to understand the crucial role that Nazi Medical Doctors played in conceptualizing and carrying out the systemic extermination of Jews in the camps. Acknowledging and understanding the forces of intolerance and hatred, and the human price of silence, are moral imperatives for everyone.
Being part of a Survivor family and a social work practitioner, I would suggest that we incorporate the role of historian to replace that of victim, to learn FROM Survivors while engaged in the "helping" process with them.
As Danielli has noted (1997), Survivors of trauma may be both successful in their post-trauma adaptation and troubled in relation to their survival experience. She suggests the importance of having a broad perspective in understanding the Survivor self. One can understand the impact of trauma on the continuity of self by having a multidimensional, interdisciplinary, and integrative framework. Psychological resources and deficits are then seen as coexisting in a state of dynamic tension and balance.
In the therapeutic process, Danielli (1988) states that we develop, harness and ally ourselves with the individuals' or families' present and past strengths. These include cognitive abilities, ways of understanding, taking control and gaining mastery over daily challenges in the struggle to survive and rebuild a meaningful life. Hope, determination, courage, loyalty, and humour maintain the human spirit. Sources of support and love in one's memories and current life, all nurture one's ability for trusting, and for experiencing, accepting and giving love and help. Healing and recovery becomes possible. The most important element in fostering Survivors recovery and stability, according to Marcus and Rosenberg, (1988), is their sense of having gratifying reciprocal human relations and a feeling of solidarity and mutual support.
Reflecting on the lives of Survivors, we see several threads and processes that are intricately woven together, not always easily separable - the war experiences, immigration, aging, cognitive losses, and institutionalization. It is sometimes difficult to tease out what is specifically related to the trauma of war. Different layers of understanding are needed.
Many of the children of Survivors have used their legacy as a motivational force in achieving a purpose in life, a strong sense of identity, and a sensitivity to human suffering. Being there to listen and understand, to bear witness, both personally and collectively, is a moral task and an enduring legacy for us all.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, Leslie. "The Long-Term Psychological Consequences of the Holocaust on the Survivors and Their Offspring."The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Edited by Randolph Braham. Social Science Monographs, Boulder,CO.1988.
Bistritz, Janice F." Transgenerational Pathology in Families of Holocaust Survivors." The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Edited by R. Braham. 1988.
Danieli, Yael. "The Heterogeneity of Postwar Adaptation in Families of Holocaust Survivors." The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Ed. by R. Braham. 1988.
Danieli, Yael. "As Survivors Age: An Overview". Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 1997,30(1):9-26.
Danieli, Yael. "Introduction: History and Conceptual Foundation" International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. Ed. by Yael Danieli. New York:Plenum Press, 1998.
Frankl, Viktor E. Man's Search for Meaning. New York:Simon and Schuster, 1964.
Greenspan,Henry, "Lives as Texts: Symptoms as Modes of Recounting in the Life Histories of Holocaust Survivors." Storied Lives: The Cultural Politics of Self Understanding. Ed. George Rosenwald, Richard Ochberg. Connecticut:Yale University, 1992.
Greenspan, Henry, On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Recounting and Life History. Connecticut: Praeger, 1998.
Hass, Aaron. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Second Generation. Boston:Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Kaufman, Sharon R. The Ageless Self: Sources of Meaning in Late Life. New York:Meridian, 1986.
Kleinman, Arthur. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books, 1988.
Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage,1988.
Lifton, Robert J. "Life Unworthy of Life: Nazi Racial Views". The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Edited by Randolph Braham. 1988.
Marcus, Paul and Rosenberg, Alan. "A Philosophical Critique of the "Survivor Syndrome" and Some Implications for Treatment." The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Ed. by R. Braham. 1988.
Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Ornstein, Anna. "Survival and Recovery." Psychoanalytical Inquiry, 5, 1985, 107.
Peskin, Harvey. "Observations of the First International Conference on Children of Holocaust Survivors." Family Process, 20, 1981, 391-394.
Rosenbloom, Maria. "Lessons of the Holocaust for Mental Health Practice." The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath. Ed. by R. Braham.
Rosenwald, George, and Ochberg, Richard. "Introduction: Life Stories, Cultural Politics, and Self-Understanding". Storied Lives:The Cultural Politics of Self Understanding. Ed. George Rosenwald, Richard Ochberg. Connecticut:Yale University Press. 1992.
Seidelman, William E.. Memory, Medicine and Morality: The meaning of the exploitation of the human body in the Third Reich. Presented at Symposium on The History of Nazi Euthanasia in Vienna, Vienna, Austria. January, 1998.