This week I completed my 100th and last interview for my book on intergenerational trauma titled The Hidden Victims. Natasha’s paternal grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. She was born after her grandmother had passed. She knew nothing about her grandmother’s experience, and I didn't expect to see any signs of trauma with such a weak connection. Like every other person I had interviewed, she freely shared things about her family and herself. As I began to probe into her emotional centre, the trauma reveled itself. Just another incredible piece of this book.

When I began the interviews in March 2024, I never planned on interviewing 100 people. I thought that 30 interviews would be enough. But I should step back for a moment. While trying to heal from my own trauma, I wanted to find out how similar or different were the experiences of other descendants of survivors. I didn’t know if I would find enough people to interview or whether I would get worthwhile information. But my curiosity was the inspiration for this book.

As it turned out, finding people to interview was not hard at all. This was a community that wanted to discover exactly what I was looking to find. And the more people I interviewed the more I learned about the community of second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) survivors. My biggest problem was the process was very triggering for me. My therapist was very concerned about my mental health. She also knew I was not going to stop.

So many interviews stand out. Haddasah (a pseudonym) is a 3G with 4 grandparents who were survivors. She belongs to a small community of Satmar Jews. They are ultraconservative Hasidic Jews who reject the modern world and are extremely insular. I was astonished that she reached out to me and that she had access to the internet. She was one of eleven children of an abusive narcissistic father and depressed and detached mother. She described childhood abuse that shocked me.

Erin, another 3G was the first in her family to be born in America, and felt her family’s legacy has been placed on his shoulders. Her young son’s dreams opened my eyes to how epigenetics operates. At the age of 3 or 4, he had a dream of being pulled from his mother’s arms and put on a train. Erin was shocked because during the war her grandmother was on train platform on the way to Auschwitz and a SS guard pulled a baby from her arms and put him on another car. They never saw the child again.

Rachel, a 3G nurse who one night found herself treating an elderly man who was a grandchild of Nazis. After learning about Rachel’s grandmother’s incarceration in Auschwitz, he broke down in front of her asking for forgiveness for what his ancestor had done. What I learned was that intergenerational trauma does not just exist in the descendants of the victims but the perpetrators as well.

Tamara, a 2G, was raised Christian but was always drawn to the Jewish community. At the age of 17, she learned that her paternal grandfather was a Jew and had died in Dachau. Her father had never told her and her siblings because he carried around shame as a result of persecution as a child.

Karen, a 2G, described to me how she first learned about the Holocaust. She was in the third grade in Hebrew school. The teacher sent her into the hallway while she covered the Holocaust with the rest of the class. She was the only one with a Holocaust survivor parent. The rabbi walked by and asked her why she was in the hallway. He took her to his room and told her that her father was very special. He went through something terrible, called the Holocaust. She went home and asked her dad what was the Holocaust. He turned around and just walked down the street.

Denise, also a 2G, recalled how her father had issues with depression, guilt, and nightmares. He was the only one in his family to survive and it weighed heavily on him. Sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of night screaming. Later on in years when he had developed dementia, he could remember every single detail of every abusive, horrific, nightmarish experience from the Holocaust. But he couldn't remember Denise’s younger daughter's name.

Dara’s paternal grandparents were both survivors. Her father's memory of growing up included listening to his mother screaming six hours a day. She spent every single day screaming hysterical and cussing out the Nazis in Yiddish. What's fascinating is that he still would describe her as mother of the year. Best mother ever.

Charlotte, a 2G spoke at lengths about her relationship with her father. She was terrified of him. He wasn't a father who you would go to. He didn't care about anything about Charlotte. She described her father as the sort of person who laughs at somebody who has cancer because it's not him.

Not every parent was a nightmare. Ruth’s parents were both were Holocaust survivors. She indicated that the family was very open about their experiences. She didn’t directly hear all of the details from her father because he died young. Her mother was quite open. She spoke at schools and churches and wrote a book. She described her home as happy.

Share

Over 10 percent of children of survivors that I interviewed told me that one of their parents was so profoundly affected by their experience that they incurred a mental breakdown requiring hospitalization. Unfortunately, there was little or no treatment for these conditions in the 1950s and early 1960s other than electroshock therapy.

Marlene was 67 years old and from Chicago. Her mother spent about two years in Auschwitz. Marlene described how traumatized her mother was. When Marlene was one, her mother had her first breakdown. She was hospitalized for a very long time. Her father took care of Marlene’s brother who was four years older. Another family moved in to take care of Marlene.

The stories go on and on. Each one unique and filled with pain and resilience. I have about 4,000 pages of transcripts to work through to construct this book. As onerous as this might seem, it’s also a labour of love.

A Jew Lost in the Wilderness is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.