Carmella Grynberg, Assoc. Dip. Human Services (Monash), Master of Creative Therapies (R.M.I.T.)
Tamara Blacher, B.A. (Hons), Dip.Ed. B.S.W. (Hons), Australia

From February to May 2000 the Holocaust Survivor Programme under the auspices of Jewish Community Services ran an Art Therapy group for Child Survivors of the Holocaust. The authors facilitated the Group and the following presents an account of this experience.

Introduction
One and a half million children were murdered during the Holocaust. The Nazi leaders decreed that along with all Jewish adults, all Jewish children were to be exterminated. Children were not spared any of the atrocities inflicted on the adults. They experienced the whole range of Holocaust experiences including segregation, stigmatisation, concealment, round-ups, mass shootings, deportations, slave labour, concentration camps, torture, medical experimentation and murder.

In his book "Child Survivors: Adults Living with Childhood Trauma" Dr. Paul Valent. (A Melbourne psychiatrist who has written widely on the subject of child survivors of the Holocaust), states that" children want to express their inner turmoil to the outside world" (Valent, p2, 1994), however, often their pain is unacknowledged and unspoken. "The Holocaust became such an immense part of the survivors' childhood that it wove itself into every intimate aspect of life." (Valent, p269, 1994). For some child survivors there was the ability to directly link the present with the past. For others, for example, those child survivors who were extremely young during the holocaust there may be almost no visual memories at all of early traumatic experiences. What memories they have are fragments. Also these children's memories were influenced by their parents' need "to filter, buffer and arrange their child's mind." (Valent, p282, 1994) In an effort to protect their children and perhaps to hide their own feelings of vulnerability, guilt and shame the older survivors may have given the message to their children "do not know, do not remember, you cannot remember, you should not remember, and what you remember is wrong". (Valent, p282, 1994).

Remembering can be extremely painful, but if memories are not validated they remain elusive but also burdensome in the form of dreams and flashbacks. Feelings of unspoken grief, yearning, anger, outrage, guilt and shame may be internalised resulting in many difficulties for child survivors

Philosophical Perspective
The philosophy that underpins the way we approached our art therapy practice came from the phenomenological perspective. The term phenomenology has been known in philosophy since the middle of the 181h century and focuses on investigating the fullness of the subjective experience of things, an investigation that is as far as possible, free from preconceived or inferred theories about the experience under investigation.

In art, this leads to the experience of seeing with openness and intention, that is experiencing things with one's entire being and with no prior judgement. Together with the therapist, the participant views the creative work without judgements or assumptions in mind. Group participants learn to look at their visual productions and see in them the inner experience that guided their hand in the shaping of the artwork.

Through the art of looking at their own work new facets of self become apparent to the art maker and new communication takes place between the art work and the subjective experience. As well as this, the experience of making decisions and taking safe risks during the creative process can assist art therapy participants to move towards a renewed ability to look, feel and begin to understand their inner experience and responses to the larger world.

Setting up of Group:
The group was advertised in the Melbourne Jewish Press and radio, in the Child Survivor's newsletter and via information leaflets, which were distributed to centres, attended by the Jewish public. As well, letters outlining the therapy sessions were sent to local doctors and psychiatrists who were known by the agency to be providing services to Holocaust Survivors.

Most inquiries regarding the group came via the Child Survivor's newsletter, one contact was made after listening to information given over the Jewish Radio program and one referral came from a doctor.

Each participant was interviewed prior to joining the group as a way of providing further information, answering questions and as a way of screening out applicants who may have been better suited to other types of therapy. A limit of 8 group members was set and in fact out of ten responses the group did begin with eight members. Interestingly most of the inquiries about the group were made within a week of the group commencing.

All potential group members were informed that the group was a pilot that would run 12 weeks and that an assessment of the group would occur before further sessions could be planned. They were also informed that following each session we would receive clinical supervision by the coordinator of Holocaust Survivor Program.

The sessions were held at a house owned by the local city council and utilized by community groups. It was felt that it was important to find a suitable venue that was geographically close to most of the participants. We especially looked for a venue that was well maintained and bright so that it did not re-create an atmosphere of need and deprivation. The time set for the group sessions was a weekday evening as some of the child survivors were still in the workforce.

The sessions were planned to run for 90 minutes and the structure of the session remained as unchanged as possible from week to week to create a feeling of safety and predictability for the group members. For the same reason the room's physical set up was arranged in the same configuration every week and any changes were explained to the group at the beginning of each session.

Structure of Session Time:
The first thirty minutes were spent sitting in a small circle discussing in turn how everyone's week had progressed and if they had any issues outstanding from the previous week's therapy session. Any housekeeping issues such as matters to do with times and dates were also covered at that time. At the end of the first part of the session the set theme for the creative work was spoken about and discussed within the group.

Sometimes extra time was spent in discussing and demonstrating various media as well as techniques for overcoming creative blocks.

The media and paper that was purchased was of artist quality and was plentiful, again to create a sense of plenty as well as respect for the work being done. Paper of various sizes was available and each group member was also given a bound artist diary in which they could experiment, write notes or try out techniques. The media used over the 12-week period included:

Acrylic Paints
Coloured inks
Charcoal
Multi coloured chalk pastels
Watercolour Pencils
Collage materials
Clay

Different media were introduced gradually so that those members of the group who did not have any art experience would not be overwhelmed.

When the group was ready to begin their own creative work they moved to a larger table which held the art materials. Within a week or two group members found more or less permanent spots around the table.

In the next 30 minutes each member worked alone on his or her piece, quiet work was encouraged during this time, and generally after some initial chat each participant worked in silence. The two therapists sat on the outside of the group as attentive witnesses to the work being done. This was done as a way of containing some of the strong feelings that arose during the work and also to accentuate the sense of being "cared" for during the difficult process of creating. Assistance was provided to participants if they needed practical help or some additional support. Participants were given an indication of when this part of the session was about to end, but for some it was very difficult to end the work in the allocated time.

As each participant finished they were encouraged to take some blue tack and to attach their work to a wall near the seats that they sat on at the beginning of the session. In this way the final thirty minutes of the session began.

The participants of the group were then encouraged to spend some silent time contemplating their own work as "artist - turned - beholder" and to see what was in their work. The change of focus, in purpose, as well as the physical distance from the work, allowed each group member to see their work with fresh eyes.

This step was initially difficult as the group members were very interested in each other's work and used the time to be supportive of each other's efforts. As the sessions passed they seemed to be able to spend longer looking at their own work quietly.

In this part of the session each participant spent some time telling the group what they saw in their picture. Some times this was accompanied by stories from the past and sometimes there was just description. The therapists and other group members also used the time to ask the creator of the piece questions about elements in the work that they may not have mentioned. However all analysis of the elements in the piece were left for the artist to contemplate. From this intense looking, sometimes new thoughts, feelings and ideas would emerge for the artist and could be shared with the group. At other times participants would carry the image with them over the week and speak to the group about their emerging thoughts at the beginning of the next week's session.

After the formal part of the group ended an integral part of the process was to include participants in the physical cleaning up of the art materials. This provided a natural, and informal way to unwind and return the present before everyone left to go home.

A formal supervision session was held the day after each session with the program coordinator of the Holocaust Survivor Program, Else Gingold (Clinical Psychologist). Dr Nathan Paramanathan (Australian Registered Art Therapist) provided monthly consultation in the Art Therapy discipline. Additionally each therapist wrote her own process notes as a way of recording the actual events of the sessions, her thoughts, feelings and connections. As previously mentioned the participants were aware of this.

All works done during the sessions were kept in a locked room in the neighbourhood house, however ownership of the work always remained with the group members. At the end of the 12 weeks all the works and visual diaries were returned to the participants in a personal folder.

It was decided that very open-ended themes were appropriate at the early stages of the group, as many of the group members had expressed various degrees of anxiety about their ability to draw or paint creatively. Each of the themes was presented with a rationale, however as the sessions progressed new themes became evident through the group process.

Although many art therapy groups do not set any themes for the members of the group and instead allow each group member find his or her own path, our interviews revealed to us that apart from 2 group members who had prior art experience, there was a considerable anxiety expressed about the ability to doing any creative or imaginative work. For this reason we decided to begin each week with a general theme which would allow the group a structure from which further creative work could develop. The themes were such that they also allowed participants to explore the here and now or alternatively to describe visually issues from the past. This was important as each participant in the interviews stated that they did not want to delve into the past. Interestingly though, when the group began it was mostly past memories that were explored in the work. After the first 3 weeks we used themes that the group itself identified either explicitly or implicitly in the Group itself identified either explicitly or implicitly in their own works.

Attached is an outline of the themes however for this paper we intend to describe in detail six of the sessions providing examples of the participants work. It was very important for us to include a work by each member of the group.

It is important to state that during week nine we talked to the participants about our wish to photograph their work in order to have a visual record of the sessions but also for us to be able to present papers such as this one. We also spoke about the increasing overseas interest in groups that have been established for Survivors and Child Survivors and the fact that there was little information available on the use of Art Therapy specifically with Child Survivors. We explained clearly that people had a choice about whether they wanted their work photographed and suggested that they think about it over the week. Interestingly all participants gave their consent One participant was adamant that that her name was included because she felt that if the work was presented at an international forum it may offer a chance of finding lost family members. The concept of having a record however did raise some issues for people one of whom verbalized her association of the group being "like an experiment"

When we brought the booklet of photographs to the session there was a sense of excitement and pride and a sense of "being seen being heard"

Art Therapy
Summary of Session Themes
Week 1 Charcoal Drawing
Week 2 4 Seasons
Week 3 Mandala
Week 4 Mask
Week 5 Beginning Middle End
Week 6 Purim
Week 7 Open the Box
Week 8 Opposites
Week 9 Taking another path
Week 10 Pesach
Week 11 Returning to the first session
Week 12 Decorating a personal folio

Week 3 Mandala
Mandala (a symbol that has relevance across cultures) was a means of expressing feelings and expression of self in a contained structure. Some expression of self had already begun in a diffused way in session two and this theme provided an opportunity to continue this in a safe way. There was an acknowledgement that the process and the group was still very new and required the boundaries and containment of Mandala for people to feel safe to express their feelings.

For this participant the Mandala theme was the beginning of a journey. The first mandala produced was symmetrical, ordered and S was very relieved that her pattern of geometric shapes worked out, she utilized her pretty pastel colours, which were represented in many of her works. The second Mandala was bolder and freer. (See Illustration 2) The colours are richer and have more depth and S has "dared" to go beyond the boundaries of the Mandala. After observing her work S stated that the first was conventional "what 1 am like "and the second is "how 1 would like to be", We commented that who she is encapsulated in both works.

For this participant the Mandala theme was the beginning of a journey. The first mandala produced was symmetrical, ordered and S was very relieved that her pattern of geometric shapes worked out, she utilized her pretty pastel colours, which were represented in many of her works. The second Mandala was bolder and freer. The colours are richer and have more depth and S has "dared" to go beyond the boundaries of the Mandala. After observing her work S stated that the first was conventional "what 1 am like "and the second is "how 1 would like to be", We commented that who she is encapsulated in both works.

In discussion about the first image the issue about " being good" was raised. During the war the Child Survivors needed to "be good "in order to survive. After the war they needed to be good in order to protect their own parent or parents from further suffering or as a way of being able to continue with their own lives.

Week 5 Beginning - Middle - End
During this session there was a conscious decision to change the scale of work by introducing smaller pieces of paper and coloured pencils with the thought that changing dimensions may effect a change in imagery. These thoughts arose out of attempt to respond to some of the difficulties people were experiencing in previous sessions. Some participants were overwhelmed by the scale of the paper and felt compelled to fill the entire space.

This was a very significant work for this participant and she referred to this piece specifically when reviewing her work at the end of the 12 weeks. "B" began this session with the materials and allowed herself to "play" with the medium and the image formed from there. When reflecting on her work she stated the process had been a spiritual experience she described the first image as embryonic, which culminated in the flowering of the daisy but incorporating memories of the past. The red for her symbolized the Holocaust. She stated that she did not intend to portray the Holocaust and she was quite overwhelmed by her unconscious expression of memory and image. At the beginning of the next session she asked for the piece to be taken out so she could look at it again as she had been thinking about it throughout the week.

Week 6 Purim
As we came close to the Jewish festival of Purim we felt that we should acknowledge it in some way. In addition we felt that some of the themes of Purim touched many of the issues being raised by the group. It is a festival in which children participate by dressing up, it is also a time where rules are symbolically transgressed and everyone has permission to express themselves through clothes, play and behaviour in ways that are not normally expected. In fact things can often turn upside down and rules can be broken.

For this reason we felt that exploring the theme of Purim could again symbolically give participants a chance to play with "the normal order of things." We hoped that it would encourage a mood of playfulness and imagination.

In "M's picture she had decided to reverse the usual pictorial depiction of the world by putting the sky and sun at the bottom of the picture and the earth at the top. A long grey line intersects the image. 'M s work has often showed this long road. Our first connection to this image was that it depicted the rail line to the crematoria, which was depicted as the house belching red smoke. In allowing "M" to look and describe her own work another more personal narrative emerged. The long boulevard holds for her a deeply painful memory, not of the crematoria but related to her days of hiding. The house represented the houses that were bombed around her at the end of the war, blazing and burning. The other motif that often comes up in her work is the creation of a safe place for children. This is seen by the green bracket around the children and the yellow sun above them, so unlike the menacing red and the fierce orange sun in the upside down sky.

This experience of looking at the work with the participant highlighted the importance of the therapist not viewing the work with pre-determined ideas and assumptions.

Week 8 Opposites. 1.
This theme arose from identifying opposites in the work produced in the previous weeks for example in the themes of Mandala, Masks and Purim. We noticed that in many of the images being produced a variety of elements appeared that spoke of awareness of the two sidedness of life.

For a number of sessions D did not follow the theme and paint faces and instead explored the colours that "filled her heart". At the beginning of this session N stated that the month of April and its association with Passover was extremely difficult for her and as the weeks continued she struggled more and more with her desire to be well and not depressed. During this session N stated that she had been feeling "quite shaky" but after completing the work the shaking stopped.

In reflecting on her work N stated that when she drew the piece she was actually experiencing the trauma that she depicted. "N" commented "I have been carrying the image for 53 years and wanted to get it out." She described how she had "entered the picture, it was no longer something separate." She stated that she felt she was actually back in the ghetto. After completing the first painting she moved to a second one which she to her represented her attempt to reconnect with the present and to recapture the feeling that she experienced in her earlier works.

This participants experience highlighted for us how intense the process can be when memory is recreated visually. It confirms the nature of this work and its impact as being both profound and precarious for the participant.

Opposites. 2.
The theme of opposites is clearly identifiable in O's work. As soon as the participants approached the work tables" O said to us' Well its easy, opposites, day and night of course, but that is too simple and boring" We encouraged P to continue with this theme and to try not to censor her thoughts into good and bad ones.

Night and day are separated emphatically by the diagonal black line. Reflecting on this work O talked about her experiences during the war of walking during the day with other children through the streets. It was not uncommon for children to wander about the streets hoping not to be recognized and to escape the attention of the Gestapo. At night they sought refuge in constantly changing places. During the night the relentless walking could stop and the children sought shelter. O stated that the sometimes people took pity on them and provided them with food and shelter.

This work was significant for O as it was the first time she allowed herself to connect directly with an experience without censorship. I t was the first time the struggle was not about the doing but of seeing and talking about the experience as she depicted it.

Week 9 Taking the other path
Again arising from the previous sessions we began to reflect on the different paths people travel throughout their lives. This thought arose out of a conversation with a Child Survivor outside the group who made the observation of a heavy stone covering the earth and the strength that a blade of grass had to push through and grow. It was anticipated that this theme would touch on the past and give permission for the participants to explore the feelings of the paths they had chosen or were forced to take.

S' picture is a representation of the room she was told about or saw when she returned to the village where her parents lived before the war. When she returned she was shown the house where her mother worked. In discussion she recreated in her mind what her mothers' room would have looked like and the world that she would have experienced had the war not occurred. Unfortunately her experiences as a baby were very traumatic and her world took on a much bleaker aspect.

She did a second piece of work in this session and she described her feelings after the war. A tiny figure in a disconnected landscape filled with the haunting blue grey colour. This represented her reality rather than the other, which she still longed for.

Conclusion:
At the end of the 12 sessions, evaluation sheets were given to the participants of the group. We also planned for a follow up meeting one month after the final session to allow for people to reflect on the impact of the experience and to receive their feedback.

When we began this project we were not aware of any precedents in terms of other art therapy groups for child survivors to either guide us or prepare us for the impact of this experience. Perhaps this uncertainty enabled us to understand the complex emotions that the participants may have experienced in beginning and attending such a group. This uncertainty and awareness of our responsibility lead us to be attentive to every small issue and facet of planning for this group and we feel that this attention to detail helped to secure the feeling of containment and safety that enabled the work to proceed.

The participants' expressed a range of emotions about the work they did. The following are some of the comments written by them on the evaluation sheets.

"Some paintings brought out painful childhood memories."
"More than expected 1 found the group activity deeply spiritual and healing".
"Sometimes the collective grief got a bit much for me".
"I was disappointed and angry after every session".
Reflecting on what was most helpful and valuable one participant wrote:
"Painting and drawing, later looking and analysing subconscious messages. Understanding and acknowledging the past in the presence of the ... facilitators ... and the group."

The Holocaust Survivor Program with in Jewish Community Services has now given a commitment that the Art Therapy Group will be an on going aspect of the program and we will be conducting two 12 week programs a year.