Transgenerational pathology, anticipated by Freud in an allusion in 'Totem and taboo', has received in connexion with the trauma of the Holocaust regarding the second generation the cautiously chosen appellation 'child-of-a-survivor syndrome'. This trauma is transmitted to children by a mechanism which Kestenberg has called 'transposition into the world of the past' and which constitutes an enigmatic 'telescoping of generations' (Faimberg). A parallelism at a distance exists between the second generation of victims and perpetrators, as well as a basic distinction. Further reflection on a concept banished by Freud to a footnote shows that a 'borrowed unconscious sense of guilt' is exceedingly helpful in elucidating a quasi-melancholic identification for restitution of the ideal function of the object; this is illustrated by the example of the treatment of a child of one deeply involved in Nazi activities, where this elucidation made it possible to understand a symptom as a palimpsest of the father's ideology.