TRANS-GENERATIONAL TRAUMA

            Growing up, I noticed little things that most children miss. If my father was a few minutes late getting home from work, my mother would pace from window to window, muttering in a shaky voice that Daddy should be home by now. Over and over again. Knowing that the subway could be unreliable or that he might have run into a neighbor did not help her.

            I knew people who would never ride the subway. Never ever. Living in New York, it is rather difficult to totally avoid use of the subway. They either walked everywhere or, if necessary, took cabs or asked for rides.

            These people all had something in common. They were Holocaust survivors.

            My observations broadened as I got older. A good friend of mine in high school, a child of survivors, was always worried about her “papers being in order.” Her passport, especially, must be current. You never know when you might have to flee the country, she would explain.

            Someone I met in college was going on job interviews but would never interview for a job on a high floor in a tall office building. I don’t like elevators, she would explain, shrugging as if it were a normal feeling. What if it gets stuck and you’re trapped?

            What did these two have in common? They were children of Holocaust survivors.

            Do the children of survivors absorb or inherit the traumas of their parents? As a child of survivors myself, I was aware that I harbored my own share of trauma symptoms. For one thing, I have always hated striped clothing, which conjured images of concentration camp inmates. Vertical stripes on a shirt can provoke me to mild nausea. Another problem I endured in school was discovering a teacher was assigning seats, usually alphabetically. I was terrified of ending up in a seat at the front of the room, where I would not be near a door for a quick exit. I kept my head down, trying to blend in. In rooms where I had a choice where to sit, I always chose to sit in the back, near the back door. I wouldn’t stand out in the back. In addition, I believed that near a door, I would have a chance to escape if dangerous people broke into the room.

      Just as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was not diagnosed until 1980, after far too many soldiers returning from wars were expected to behave normally as if nothing had changed for them, so too, intergenerational trauma was not understood until fairly recently. In 1988, a book entitled Children of the Holocaust by Helen Epstein was published. The author  interviewed scores of children of Holocaust survivors, documenting the traumas with which they lived. This brought to light the fact that the traumas of Holocaust survivors can be transferred to their children.

            Today, children of survivors, known as 2Gs (Second Generation) are stepping forth and speaking up. While their parents often buried their histories, trying to blend into their new environments and possibly forget their pasts, 2Gs are now telling the stories of their families’ suffering and paths to survival as well as of the impact the parents’ experiences have had on them. Organizations where 2Gs can share their stories with one another and with the public have emerged, and 2Gs are now instrumental in Holocaust education.

            As an adult, my awareness of my own issues that I attributed to being a 2G led me to research trans-generational trauma. I dove into the findings, some of which were quite remarkable. For my blog, I interviewed 20 children of survivors, hearing about a range of experiences. I met someone whose parents not only never told her they were Holocaust survivors but never told her they were Jews! She found out when her last surviving parent was dying. She realized that they felt they were protecting her, unable to believe it was safe to be a Jew anywhere in the world. Perhaps they were also trying to deny to themselves what they had experienced. I met several 2Gs who could never invite any friends to sleep over when they were children because they were embarrassed by a parent screaming with nightmares during the night.

            Many 2Gs express a feeling of protectiveness towards their parents. Since their parents sacrificed and suffered, the children feel they owe it to them to be good, never cause trouble, and achieve success, thereby rewarding their parents for all they’d gone through. There are other cases, however, where the 2Gs rebel, feeling that their parents’ expectations are stifling. At times, the rebellious phase passes and the 2Gs come to an understanding of their parents; unfortunately, the feeling of being overburdened and suffocated by family demands sometimes alienates the 2G from family into adulthood.

            As a freelance writer for years, publishing in literary journals and anthologies, I wrote about a variety of topics. But for all those years, one story always nagged at me. A troubled character had taken up residence in my head, demanding to be recognized. This character was a young woman, age 28, a child of survivors, working in a large high school (as I had done) and struggling with many PTSD-type symptoms. Embarrassed by her strange fears and hallucinations, she keeps trying very hard to conceal them and to appear ‘normal.’ I understood this character. She was an extreme version of me.

Eventually, this character burst forth from my head and became the protagonist of my debut novel Escaping the Whale, published in 2020. I drew this title from my fascination with the Biblical story of Jonah. I always saw that as the story of an unhappy person attempting to escape his life and hoping that physically relocating will allow him to be reborn as a different person. Like Jonah, my protagonist attempts the same thing; like Jonah, she discovers that one cannot escape from oneself.

            During my interviews, I heard a variety of stories. The sound of sirens sent someone’s mother into a complete meltdown, and she eventually became schizophrenic. Another parent would run across the street to get away from a German Shepherd, even though she liked other dogs. (German Shepherds were used by the Germans in concentration camps to terrorize and attack when ordered, as anyone who has watched a Holocaust movie would know.)

 One 2G’s described a mother who would “freak out” hearing a baby cry. This mother would never explain it, but another Auschwitz survivor did. Apparently, the Jewish women who were pregnant and secretly delivered in Auschwitz had to hide their babies from the German guards. If a baby was discovered, her or she was tortured and killed in front of the mother. Therefore, mothers would put their hands over the baby’s mouth to stifle the sound of crying, often inadvertently suffocating the child. “Remember the babies,” the survivors said to each other.

One woman told me about the neighbor who helped her mother obtain forged Christian identity papers which allowed her to survive. Unbelievably, years later in the United States, the survivor and her 2G daughter met the daughter of the man who forged her identity papers, and they were able to help her bring her family from Poland to the United States!

 Tears filled my eyes as I viewed the photograph of this survivor who went back to her hometown with her American family and reunited with the neighbor who had hidden her from the Nazis. Now an old woman, this Polish farmer was delighted to see she had survived and they hugged. The survivor’s grandson got to see where his grandmother had hidden, behind a plank in her barn. He tried to fit in and barely managed.

I listened to some 2Gs reveal their childhood resentments and their sense of being outsiders among other children. Often, they recounted seeking out other children of survivors, sensing who they were, as the only people with whom they could feel comfortable. Either because non-Jews had helped some of the survivors or because they had seen the worst in human nature, many survivors believed in the importance of helping others in their communities. In so many cases, their 2G children picked up on their parents’ interest in helping and devoted their own lives to careers that involve giving aid to those in need. 2Gs seem to be serious people, taking their causes to heart, some explaining that they are unable to ever be happy-go-lucky.

Both of my own parents were assisted by kind, brave non-Jews in their separate escapes from Austria. My father was hidden by a Christian neighbor when Nazis were searching for Jewish males. Hiding in a back room, he heard the Gestapo come to the apartment door and he then heard this neighbor scold them for even asking if she is hiding a Jew since, as she told them, she is a “pure-bred Aryan.” How dare they?! They apologized and left.

            My father was a 23- year-old student at the University of Vienna at this time. When all Jews were expelled from the school, he knew he had to get out of the country. Getting a registration number from the American Consulate was a difficult, lengthy procedure but through a friend, my father obtained one and traveled to Rotterdam, Netherlands. There, he boarded a ship to the United States. He was not in the country long before he was drafted and served in the U.S. Army. Although he was sent to North Africa, Italy, and Austria, he ultimately was assigned to translation work for Army Radio because of his knowledge of both German and English.

My mother’s escape was a bit more complex. March 12, 1938, the day Hitler annexed Austria, was the day my 14-year-old mother’s life changed. Their Christian neighbors in Vienna, with whom they had good relationships, no longer greeted them with “Guten Morgen,” but with “Heil Hitler!” Her father was forced to clean the streets one evening with other Jewish men. Her parents knew they had to leave the country. This was going to be difficult.

            At the time, there was an outbreak of scarlet fever and my mother’s 13-year-old brother was in the hospital. The Jewish children were kept in a separate room. A doctor friend advised her father to take him from the hospital, despite his serious condition, and just get out. It was September 1938 and they had an exit visa for the four of them, marked with a large “J” for Juden (Jew) but they had no entry visa that would allow them to enter another country. My grandfather had a brother living in Paris and their goal was to get there.

            They made it to Trier in Germany but were stopped at the border. This is where a kindly Christian man allowed them to stay in an attic room, despite his obvious fear. Eventually, they reached a cousin in Belgium by phone, who got them visas into the country, and from there to Luxembourg. My mother’s 13-year-old brother was very ill and a Christian friend of their cousin offered to let them stay at their farm, at risk to themselves, so that my uncle could recuperate. Another Christian friend took my mother on the train to Paris, letting her use her daughter’s passport, which did not bear the giant “J,” also at risk to herself. These good, kind people helped them survive.

            About a month later, my mother’s parents and brother were able to join her in Paris, sneaking through woods to a contact waiting for them. In May 1940, my grandfather was arrested as a German, despite the “J” on his passport. Now that Austria was part of Germany, he was considered an enemy. After Holland and Belgium fell, they knew the Germans were on the way. Refugees were told they had to “register” before leaving Paris. My grandmother was ready to obey but my 13-year-old uncle said that he had a bad feeling about it and urged them to just get out. It turned out the registering was a roundup and my uncle’s instinct saved them.

            With hordes of others as well as the French army, they fled Paris, heading south on foot. They walked with suitcases over their heads to protect from German strafing. Terrified, they had to dive into ditches and foxholes along the way. Eventually, they found shelter with a kindly French carpenter who allowed them to stay in his workshop. He already had a houseful of refugees he was sheltering and apologized for not having room for them in his house. Another compassionate soul. After ten days, they arrived in the small town of Chateauroux, where white sheets were spread on the ground, meaning they were surrendering to the Nazis. The Vichy government had been formed and France was now divided. Chateauroux was just beyond the line of demarcation, so they were in Free France. Worried about finding where my grandfather was being held, they went to Toulouse and then Moissac, where they heard of a Jewish French organization that might help.

            They finally did find out where my grandfather was being held and my mother, now 16, went herself on a train to plead for his release. She had the good luck to run into an official who could help and who agreed to release my grandfather. They eventually made it to Marseille, where they were housed in ghetto-like buildings, men and women separately, with curfews.

At the American consulate, refugees were lined up down the street. My uncle had become fluent in French and translated for many people. Someone working at the embassy noticed my uncle. Impressed, he asked him if he too was interested in going to America. He said they were but his parents were waiting for an appointment. This official gave them an appointment for the next day. This appointment, secured through my uncle, saved them. When the official heard that they were waiting for four Polish visas (my grandparents were born there so even though they became Austrian citizens, they were considered Poles), he told them that the Polish visa was bad and they would never get out that way. He advised them to let the children, my mother and uncle, who were born in Austria, apply for German visas and go to the U.S. themselves. Although my grandmother was fearful of splitting up the family, she agreed. My mother and uncle took a ship to Seville, where they waited six weeks for an available ship to the U.S. Conditions on board this ship which was deemed unseaworthy were terrible and unsanitary but the teenagers on board made the best of their first time on their own. After three years in France, staying a step ahead of the Nazis, my mother and uncle were on the way to a new life.

When they arrived in the U.S., the relative who was supposed to meet them at the port was not there. It turned out he had moved and never received their parents’ telegram. Someone from HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) noticed them and provided lodgings and jobs. They filled out the forms to bring their parents over but with the chaos of war, they were no longer in France but in Casablanca. Eventually, they found them and the family was reunited in the U.S.

Because of my parents’ experiences, I am proud to say that my sister and I were never raised to disparage or hate any other group. We were encouraged to expect to see the good in others. Some 2Gs, unfortunately, have absorbed their parents’ suspicion of anyone they don’t know. No one can criticize how others reacted to the Nazis, my mother always said, since you never know how you would have behaved in those circumstances.

Living with fear seems to be a common theme. I am personally familiar with fear, and I gave my protagonist in my novels that problem. Thoughts of bad things that can happen pop into some people’s heads constantly. In my first novel, the news reports of the day (it takes place in 1980), focused on the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran and the plight of the hostages. This provokes a constant state of fear in my main character.

One lady I interviewed, who was a mathematician and a 3G (her grandmother being the survivor) related a strange experience. Her daughter, who was the great-granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, woke up screaming one night. The daughter told of something she felt she had experienced, which happened to be exactly what the woman’s grandmother had gone through. The woman I interviewed claimed that her daughter had never heard this story. To her, it was proof of something beyond trans-generational trauma. It was proof of inherited trauma.

Inherited trauma, in which the DNA actually changes, is a fairly new field of study, part of epigenetics. Beginning in 2013, experiments were conducted with mice. Male mice were exposed to the aroma of cherry blossoms and given an electric shock whenever exposed, causing the mice to become skittish. After a short period of time, the mice were exposed to the smell but not to the electric shock. Yet they still reacted as if they’d been shocked.

After mating and producing baby mice, the baby mice, who had never experienced the electric shocks, were exposed to the cherry blossom smell. Amazingly, they reacted as if they had been shocked. Studies indicated that there had indeed been a change to their DNA. In some cases, the same reaction took place with mice of the third generation. The trauma in the first generation caused a change in the shape of a gene, which re-routed nerve cells to the amyglada, which is involved with fear. In people, it was found that the genetic change is linked to cortisol levels, which are connected to the stress response. Cases of depression, anxiety, and psychosis are associated with cortisol.

If experiencing trauma can actually alter one’s biology and pass the change on to the next generation, what does that say about trans-generational trauma? It says that it can be a very serious condition, not something one can simply ‘get over.’

How can one heal from such a legacy? For some, closure can come in the form of hearing a parent’s story for the first time. In a moving moment described to me by a 2G I interviewed, this man convinced his father, who never wanted to discuss his past, to finally tell him his story. When the father reached the part where he was riding in a cattle car en route to a concentration camp, scared of what lay ahead for him, he recalled the train suddenly stopping and the door opening to reveal the most welcome sight – American soldiers. The war had ended! His stoic father broke down in tears, re-living the joy and relief he and the other Jews on that train felt at that moment. He told his son that he always remembered and appreciated the advice one American soldier, a captain, gave him that day, to try to put the terrible experiences of the war behind him and work on building a new life. This helped the 2G son understand his father.

Another answer is creativity. As with any form of stress, finding a creative outlet helps to relieve it. One of the 2Gs I interviewed had taken up knitting. She eventually got a job in a yarn store, where she was able to help customers plan their projects and purchase yarn. She also began creating more and more complex shawls, as well as creating patterns for other knitters to follow. For her, this creative outlet connected to the fact that her survivor mother was closed off, cold and detached. Since this mother had lost her own father in a concentration camp, perhaps she feared getting emotionally close to anyone else ever again, even her own children. She seemed to not even care that her children slept in cold, unheated bedrooms and lacked warm clothing in the winter. She answered the children’s complaints about cold with the retort that she had to stand barefoot in the freezing cold for hours in the concentration camp so they shouldn’t complain.

“Now it’s my own fault if I’m not warm enough because I have quite enough shawls, hats, hoods, sweaters, socks, and mittens,” the 2G said. “It feels good to be able to do this for myself.” This woman was healing herself through knitting, in so many ways.

Knitting is just one possible creative outlet. Some people embrace painting, crafts, sewing, photography, woodworking, collaging, journaling. There are many options. For me, reading and writing have been my refuge.

A hobby can serve the same purpose. One 2G took up backpacking. She told of her father’s survival during the war, hiking miles and hiding in the woods for years. When I asked her if she thought there was a connection, she pondered that and concluded that perhaps she was trying to prove to herself that she could do what her father had done, if she had to in order to survive. She also felt that it allowed her to more fully understand what he had endured. The necessity of staying physically fit in order to survive was expressed by many 2Gs.

            Another path to healing for 2Gs is the power of a group. In Escaping the Whale, there is a scene where the protagonist sits in on a group meeting of 2Gs. For myself, joining the Phoenix Holocaust Association after I moved to Arizona helped me tremendously in coming to terms with my legacy. I met many other 2Gs, people who readily shared their stories and clearly understood and related to the stories of others.

 Another group came into my life in 2019, when I visited Vienna, the place from which my family fled. With my sister and two cousins, we were guests of Jewish Welcome Service, an organization that hosts children of Austrian Jews who escaped because of the Holocaust. We were part of a group of around 30 2G Jews from various parts of the world, all carrying stories and traumas within them. As we toured the city and got to know one another, we shared information about our backgrounds. The feeling among us was: We are not alone.

Although my own parents did not hold back when it came to telling how they escaped the Nazis after their world changed, it was a form of closure for me to actually be in the very city where they had lived, to see the apartment buildings in which they grew up, to stand in the empty spots where the beautiful synagogues once stood. Their stories and the power of their losses became real. This was a real place, where normal, friendly people now lived. Alas, it was the very place where other normal, friendly people once turned indifferent or hostile overnight. It was mind-numbing. I couldn’t help but feel somewhat suspicious of the nice people we were meeting in Vienna. Could nice people ever really be trusted? I understood survivors who remain suspicious of strangers.

If simply visiting this city opened our eyes and rendered our parents’ experiences real, I could imagine how powerful it must have been for those 2Gs who had returned to the parents’ hometowns and actually met living saviors and witnesses, who told them exactly what had happened. Often, these visits included seeing burial grounds where their ancestors were massacred. Some erected monuments on those spots and said prayers for the hordes of victims. Sad and moving, but also a form of closure.

I am most inspired by something a few of my interviewees told me. Those who did not feel they suffered any serious trauma, despite horrific ordeals their parents endured, related that their parents always emphasized the strength, cunning, and courage that got them through. In one case, for example, a man’s mother saved her sister’s life with quick thinking. They were stopped in the street by Nazi officers, who demanded their papers. The mother had fake Christian identity papers but her sister did not. The sister became frozen, then stammered and stuttered, when the Germans addressed her. The man’s mother, thinking quickly, told them that her sister is crazy and she is taking her to get help. The Germans left them alone. Stories like this inspire pride in the 2G hearing it. These survivor parents did not speak of their experiences in terms of victimization; rather, they stressed the victory of survival.

My mother, in her nineties, agreed to be interviewed for a project run by the Phoenix Holocaust Association. She endured questions about her experiences; after a while, she seemed bored with her recollections.

“Look!” she declared. “I came to the United States, I worked, I got married, I have two wonderful children!” The interview was over. My sister and I, sitting there, smiled at my mother, grateful for the gift of her attitude.

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