The Survivors of the Holocaust: General Survey

Because the traumatization of the Holocaust was both

individual and collective, most individuals made efforts to create

a "new family" to replace the nuclear family that had been lost.

In order for the victims to resist dehumanization and regression

and to find support, the members of such groups shared stories

about the past, fantasies of the future and joint prayers as well

as poetry and expressions of personal and general human aspirations

for hope and love. Imagination was an important means of

liberation from the frustrating reality by opening an outlet for

the formulation of plans for the distant future, and by spurring to

immediate actions.

Looking at the history of the Jewish survivors, from the

beginning of the Nazi occupation until the liquidation of the

ghettos shows that there are common features and simmilar

psychophysiological patterns in their responses to the

persecutions. The survivors often experienced several phases of

psychosocial response, including attempts to actively master the

traumatic situation, cohesive affiliative actions with intense

emotional links, and finally, passive compliance with the

persecutors. These phases must be understood as the development of

special mechanisms to cope with the tensions and dangers of the

surrounding horrifying reality of the Holocaust.

There were many speculations that survivors of the Holocaust

suffered from a static concentration camp syndrome. These theories

were proved to have not been valid by research that was done

immediately after liberation. Clinical and theoretical research

focused more on psychopathology than on the question of coping and

the development of specific adaptive mechanisms during the

Holocaust and after. The descriptions of the survivors' syndrome in

the late 1950's and 1960's created a new means of diagnosis in

psychology and the behavioral sciences, and has become a model that

has since served as a focal concept in examining the results of

catastrophic stress situations.

After more research was done, it was clear the adaptation and

coping mechanisms of the survivors was affected by the aspects of

their childhood experiences, developmental histories, family

constellations, and emotional family bonds. In the studies and

research that were done, there were many questions that were asked

of the subjects: What was the duration of the traumatization?,

During the Holocaust, was the victim alone or with family and

friends?, Was he in a camp or hiding?, Did he use false "Aryan"

papers?, Was he a witness to mass murder in the ghetto or the

camp?, What were his support systems- family and friends- and what

social bonds did he have? These studies showed that the

experiences of those who were able to actively resist the

oppression, whether in the underground or among the partisans, were

different in every way from the experiences of those who were

victims in extermination camps.

When the survivors integrated back into society after the war,

they found it very hard to adjust. It was made difficult by the

fact that they often aroused ambivalent feelings of fear,

avoidence, guilt, pity and anxiety. This might have been hard for

them, but decades after the Holocaust most of the survivors managed

to rehabilitate their capacities and rejoin the paths their lives

might have taken prior to the Holocaust. This is more true for the

people who experienced the Holocaust as children or young adults.

Their families live with a special attitude toward psychobiological

continuity, fear of separation, and fear of prolonged sickness and

death.

The experience of the Holocaust shows how human beings can

undergo extreme traumatic experiences without suffering from a

total regression and without losing their ability to rehabilitate

their ego strength. The survivors discovered the powers within

them in whatever aspect in their lives that were needed.