This paper is about the dread of Holocaust which cannot be expressed, which is unspeakable but nevertheless is transmitted to the second and third generations. An adult case of second generation (Alex) and a teenage patient of third generation (Benjamin) will be presented to explore “process of traumatic over-identification”. Both patients not only had to face their own current struggles but also those that were not worked through in the lives of the previous generation(s). Both were inserting themselves into the ongoing life of those who have in some way witnessed them, against the capacity to take hold of these experiences and do something with them. Their mutual symptom was self harming in the form of “cutting” their bodies. They were also cutting off metaphorically, through going into dissociative states where they were unconsciously identifying with the aggressor to repeat their intergenerational traumas. They were compelled to repeat as their trauma demanded to be expressed with the strength to cross trans-generational barriers and leave traces in the form of symptoms that kept connecting those generations, as in reality they were cut off from one another. The part of their traumatic prehistory refrained them from transforming and elaborating the historical processes to maintain a link between generations. Instead they were traumatised without knowing the reason of their suffering. These patients grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, they inhabited a family atmosphere where the centre of cosmos was presented to them as full of dread and suffering, and that there was nothing to be done about it. They were both convinced that being dead was better than being alive. My patients symptoms were not only an effort to be rescued from or have a witness to their suffering but also expressed their need to experience themselves as effective: “If I can no longer have an impact on others, at least I can have an impact on my own body”.

Analytic work commenced with Alex during lockdown through Zoom sessions whereas with Benjamin the work took place face-to-face as it came to an end few years prior to the pandemic. Each patients' analytic progression will be presented alongside some dream material and enactment within analysis. Psychoanalysis enabled the patients in remembering in the active way to do post-memorial work rather than being stuck in repetitive “rememory”. This raised the possibility of being experienced in a new way. Rather than uncovering their unconscious their analyst insisted on finding or creating a meaning for each patient with the help of historical awareness, sensitivity to context and imagination.