Long-Term Effects of the Holocaust: Empirical Evidence for Resilience in the First, Second, and Third Generation

Epidemiologic studies unequivocally demonstrate the long-term negative effects on survivors of the Holocaust. For example, some 25 years after the end of World War II, Eitinger and Strôm (1973) studied Norwegian military and paramilitary personnel who survived the concentration camps. They were all non-Jews. Only 24 of the 800 Norwegian Jews who were deported survived, so their numbers precluded a proper epidemiologic study. The investigators found that the survivors suffered from diseases of every organ system—the heart, the lungs, the stomach, and the skeletal system—from 50 to 800% more frequently than an extremely well selected comparison group. Similarly, Hermann and Thygesen found that members of the Danish resistance movement who survived the concentration camps manifested more symptoms of psychological distress such as depression, chronic exhaustion, sleep disturbances, and disturbances in sexual functioning, and more cognitive disturbances such as poor memory and an inability to concentrate. American, Canadian, and British studies of survivors of the Japanese and Korean POW camps confirm these findings. The Norwegian and American studies also found higher rates of death from unnatural causes—homicide, suicide, and accident. Studies in Israel (Carmil & Carel, 1986; Levav & Abramson, 1984), and Canada (Eaton, Sigal, & Weinfeld, 1982) have demonstrated higher levels of psychological distress, sometimes termed demoralization, among survivors up to 35 years