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The concept that the Holocaust is a unique event in human history has been seriously debated. Is the Holocaust comparable to savage massacres of other groups at other times in civilization? Or is it an event that, because of its enormity, transcends all other barbarities in modern history? If it is unique, then this uniqueness must attach itself to the identity of the children of the survivors of the Holocaust. Prince addresses this issue of identity in The Legacy of the Holocaust.
He conceived of his study in the early 1970s, before there was much interest in the children of Holocaust survivors. It is therefore of historical import and a seminal contribution to a standard collection of works on the Holocaust. Prince's doctoral dissertation, on which this text is based, influenced subsequent work, both methodologically and conceptually. The writing is rich and powerful. Especially striking is the sense of two times coexisting, the past richly evident in the present.
Prince identifies three significant sources of influence in the lives of these children: the parents' character style and their relationship with their children, the active participation of the children in imagery from their parents' past, and the cultural context in which the children have been raised. How these influences interweave and transform each other is a major focus of the study. The second focus is the relationship between the children of Holocaust survivors “and the events of history, involving observation of their adaptation to history and anticipation of their effect on it” (p. 15).
For his study, Prince developed a set of questions that were inspired by Lifton's (1969) Psychohistorical Interview. The questions appear properly open ended; they do not force choices. The raw and dramatic experience of the subjects and the scholarly analyses by Prince keep a creative distance from