Transcending Trauma

Since 1991, the Transcending Trauma Project, as part of Council for Relationships, has conducted 305 in-depth life histories with 98 Holocaust survivors, and their children and grandchildren to better understand coping and adaptation after extreme trauma. [caption id="attachment_6609" align="alignleft" width="141"] Dora with her daughter, Elaine[/caption] Where was God during the Holocaust? Why didn’t he save my family members? Why did I survive when so many I loved were killed? In their attempts to find answers to these questions, survivors’ prewar faith systems were lost, retained, or significantly altered. Despite questions regarding God’s role in the Holocaust, faith or ritual practice became important long-term strategies used by the majority of our survivor respondents to cope with the massive losses suffered in the war. This podcast visit's Dora, a survivor's, view of faith.

Since 1991, the Transcending Trauma Project, as part of Council for Relationships, has conducted 305 in-depth life histories with 98 Holocaust survivors, and their children and grandchildren to better understand coping and adaptation after extreme trauma. [caption id="attachment_6609" align="alignleft" width="141"] Dora with her daughter, Elaine[/caption] This podcast will explore the post war communication dynamics of one family, specifically the relationship between a Holocaust survivor mother, Dora, and her daughter, Elaine. This mother daughter pair highlights interesting points from the research about how an essentially positive parental relationship can mitigate the potential negative effects on the child of being exposed to parental pain at an early age. This family illustrates how, in the context of strong familial relationship, a child of survivors has been able to metabolize her parents’ pain into a set of positive lessons and values, which then became the basis for her life’s work.

Since 1991, the Transcending Trauma Project, as part of Council for Relationships, has conducted 305 in-depth life histories with 98 Holocaust survivors, and their children and grandchildren to better understand coping and adaptation after trauma. [caption id="attachment_6590" align="alignleft" width="208"] Ann and her sister, Mina, after the war in 1945[/caption] When we asked the question, “Does the Holocaust affect your political views?” a surprising number of survivors clearly stated that they do not harbor any hatred towards the groups in Europe responsible for the destruction of their families and communities. Regardless of their wartime experiences, many survivors are able to separate out their emotional responses toward the perpetrators of the specific crimes against them from their views of all the national, ethnic, and religious groups that collaborated with the German Nazi government in the genocide of Jews in Europe during World War II. Ann is one such survivor, whose interview demonstrates the importance of both of her parents’ influence in forming her beliefs of tolerance towards the perpetrators of the crimes against her family.