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As historians remind us, those who do not know and understand the past are condemned to repeat it. Those of us who are psychoanalysts are equally aware of the validity of this observation. People, however, by and large, do not want to remember the bad, let alone the terrible. Pharmaceutical companies are trying to develop medications to help people forget what they want to forget. At times this may be beneficial. At other times, however, it may be very unfortunate to ignore the past or even to deny horrific events that have occurred.
Dinora Pines, as she was reporting on her treatment of concentration camp survivors, lamented the failure of her fellow psychoanalysts in London to talk or write about their work with victims of the Holocaust.1 The tendency among psychoanalysts to look away from the impact of traumatizing real events, including horrific Holocaust experiences, has not been limited to that part of the world. For a number of years, I participated in a study group on the effect of the Holocaust on subsequent generations, led by Martin Bergmann, Milton Jucovy, and Judith Kestenberg.2 One day, as I was making the long drive to Dr. Kestenberg's home in Port Washington, NY, where the meetings were held, my companion, a friend and colleague, told me about the origin of her interest in participating in the study group.