You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Children of the Holocaust survivors bear some of the pain and problems of their parents' lives. They need sympathetic listeners with the patience and stamina to appreciate the horrors they hear and the feelings these horrors evoke in the narrator. The survivors themselves are uncertain whether they should retell memories or repress them. There seems to be no opportunity for the children to discuss their fears, so they have lived alone with fantasies, secrets, and confusions. A quarter of a million children of survivors live in the United States but they have only recently begun to share their feelings publicly.
The authors, themselves children of survivors, formed nine therapeutic groups, balanced by sex and age, in which participants could share their thoughts and feelings and through support decrease their sense of isolation and improve their self-images. The groups were essentially discussion groups, traditional psychotherapy groups, or therapeutically oriented awareness groups. The pregroup interview was all-important; applicants were asked to describe succinctly their current life, their past, the lives of their parents, the ways in which the parents dealt with the Holocaust experience as the children were growing up, and how the applicants themselves dealt with the experience. Some responded in unemotional, intellectualized ways, others with intense outbursts. They were encouraged to express anxieties, questions, or fears during the initial interview. Where possible, applicants were grouped according to social, political, religious, and geographical backgrounds. Participants agreed to attend all eight sessions, to be honest and open, and not to identify members of the group to outsiders. Transference was not discussed because of the time limit.
Strong feelings, some negative, were expressed toward the leaders because they too were children of survivors: some members were suspicious of the leaders' motives because research was involved and were hostil