Focusing this study on third generation survivors expands scientific knowledge regarding transmission of trauma and provides direction to clinical social workers treating individuals who may have a history of intergenerational trauma. Findings indicate that rather than ruminating on the pain of their ancestors, focusing attention on their strength may result in the ability to move past the pathological symptoms. The third generation appears to be reconstructing their grandparents’ history, resurfacing their legacy, and in doing so they are realizing the strength and heroic battles their grandparents fought in order to get to the place they are today. Previous research points to the transmission of pathologic symptoms this study strongly suggests that among third generation survivors, pride, strength, and gratitude are as much a part of the legacy as the negative effects of the experience. The questionnaire was administered to a purposive sample of (N=30) of third generation survivors through REDCap, an online survey database. The questions emerged from the literature as well as the search for perceptions and meanings and utilized Vikor Frankl’s existential theory. This study explored the impact the Holocaust had on third generation survivors through administering an eight item semi-structured questionnaire called, The Third Generation Questionnaire, which was created for the purpose of this study. Despite the significant amount of research that has been done on Holocaust survivors and their offspring, little has been investigated about when, why and how surviving generations begin to move past pathological symptoms. Since that time, researchers have found that the Holocaust has had a psychological, social, and cultural effect on first and second generation survivors. An example of this postmemory art is American novelist Art Spiegelman’s “ Maus.Over sixty-five years ago the Jewish people were liberated from Nazi Europe. She looks at traumatic memories being transferred through fiction, art, memoir and testimony. In this paper, I revisit the theory of an intergenerational transmission of Holocaust trauma. These memories are transmitted so deeply that they become the memories of the second generation themselves.Īccording to Hirsch, descendants of survivors may “remember” past trauma though stories, mannerisms and images. Scholar Marianne Hirsch shows in her “postmemory” work how trauma is transmitted to the children of survivors. My research looks at how traumatic memory is transmitted down through the generations. The very act of remembering brings these events into the present and makes them relevant to our own times. Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander says the memory of these events provides lessons for the future. The day has also been used to speak about the unprecedented refugee crises in other parts of the world, such as the attacks on civilians in Syria. There has been little research on this topic from a.

In 2018, the day specifically explored the theme of shared responsibility. However, there is far less research focused on the third generation of holocaust survivors. In recent years, the focus of the United Nations has ranged from issues such as violence against women and children to increasing tolerance. Holocaust survivors can still display posttraumatic stress symptoms almost 70 years after the trauma, whereas no intergenerational transmission of trauma was found among the second generation. For example, the central theme of 2010 was about Holocaust survivors and what future generations can learn from them.Īs the world confronts more crimes against humanity, growing nationalism and global refugee crises, keeping the memory of the Holocaust has become increasingly important because it can bring awareness to contemporary atrocities. My first encounter with intergenerational transmission of trauma was in the 1990s, soon after my team documented high rates of PTSD among Holocaust survivors in my childhood community in Cleveland. Controlled studies have confirmed that Holocaust trauma has psychological impacts on the children of survivors, such. Since 2010, the United Nations has set specific themes to not only remember past crimes, but prevent future ones.

Holocaust intergenerational trauma