A research group entitled The Group for the Psychoanalytic Study of the Effect of the Holocaust on the Second Generation has been formed in New York under the co-chairmanship of Drs. Martin Bergmann and Milton Jucovy. The group is studying material from analytic work with the children of concentration camp survivors. They hope to elucidate the mode of transmission of traumatic events from parents to children. They are interested not only in accounts of children whose parents were persecuted, but would also like to study the effect of parent-persecutors (Nazis) on their children.

The group was organized to study responses to a questionnaire sent out by Dr. Judith Kestenberg under the auspices of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis. As a result of this study, several papers were presented on the topic at a joint meeting of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis and the International Congress on Child Psychiatry in Jerusalem in 1970. Following this, a workshop on the children of survivors was held at the meeting of the APsaA in 1971. Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg, a candidate at the Baltimore-D.C. Institute, was the reporter for the workshop. He published the proceedings of the discussion in the Journal of the APsaA.

Anyone with relevant material is encouraged to send it, or, if possible, to attend a meeting of the group and to discuss it as well. (This is open to candidates, and graduate analysts.) Material should be sent to the group's corresponding secretary:

Dr. Judith Kestenberg

30 Sound view Lane

Sands Point, New York 11050