|
 |
 |
The Psychosocial Effects of the Holocaust on Jewish Survivors Living in Poland
Prof. Maria Orwid, M.D., Ewa Domagalska-Kurdziel, M.A., Kazimierz Pietruszewski, M.D.
Almost half of the examined persons stated that after the war their relations with peers were good. Most of them did not seek persons of Jewish origin in their surroundings. Nearly all planned setting up a family and having children, but only three persons wanted their partners to be of Jewish origin. They all set up families with persons of non-Jewish origin. They have children. Only 2 persons wanted their procreative families to be reconstructions of the lost generation families. Most persons declared that their motivation to marry was not connected with their surviving the Holocaust. Only one person wanted to have children to replace the (procreative) family which she had lost. Nearly 1/4 of the examined persons have excessive emotional and social expectations as regards their own children, and bind them too much. Their work with their children is mostly concentrated on intellectual and family values.
For half of the group their Jewish origin and the period of Holocaust were kept a family secret for a long time. The prevalent sensation experienced by a majority of the group towards their social environment is anxiety and desire to conceal their origin. Nearly all of them encountered manifestations of anti-semitism. Half of them reacted with fear, sadness and sense of threat. They all believe that war experiences exert influence on their orientation and political views, yet, almost half of them preserve distance from politics. For all members of the group the highest value in life is their own family - the private sphere. Some of them believe that it is essential to preserve Jewish tradition and presence in Poland. Most of them are prone to be hurt (March 1968 experiences). In more than a half of the examined group the political changes in Poland influence their attitude towards the taboo of the Holocaust, in most of them changes in their attitude to their Jewish origin and the problems of Jewish presence in Poland could be detected. In most of the examined persons the elements of penance (13) and feeling of guilt (14) are present.
Under the DSM-III-R criteria the symptoms of PTSD were found in all examined persons. They all suffered from difficulties in falling asleep and sleep disturbances, recurrent dreams about traumatic events, irritability, excessive alertness, feeling of instant fear in situations resembling traumatic events. They all suffered from a sense of alienation and isolation from others, a tendency to depressions, excessive suspiciousness. In all political and social situations connected in any way with anti-semitism or other manifestations of totalitarianism these symptoms are intensified. All examined persons experienced a long period of avoiding reminiscences, returning to the places or situations which would remind of traumatic events.
Recapitulation
It seems that they differ from the survivors abroad in their higher level of education. Another difference is that they keep secret not only the Holocaust but also their Jewish origin. They marry persons of non-Jewish origin in order to disappear in the social background and forget. In the structure of their own families the fathers are so over-possessive towards their children (daughters) that they break the relationships between mother and daughter and, in a sense, create a void in their married life. All the group is characterized by unfulfillment of their primary life goal, that is, full assimilation into Polish society and rejection of their heritage. In the course of their lives the distribution of fear connected with their origin, sense of threat and alienation varies.
Considering this process from the point of view of psychiatry it is difficult not to recognize this specific failure as a kind of recovery, for giving up the secret in both key sectors, i.e., the Holocaust and the origin, may cause improvement of communication in families as well as overcoming of the sense of alienation through finding a new group of reference, e.g., the Children of Holocaust Association.
We cannot compare the levels of early childhood deprivations with the literature (we have not found any data as regards this issue), but in our examined group it was surprisingly high. In this sample we also detected dominance of connections with fathers over the connections with mothers. We are not able to explain these phenomena fully. They may be connected with the high status of the father in Jewish tradition, and, though the examined persons came from formally assimilated circles, the climate of emotional links might have been preserved in accord with the tradition.
Literature describing the survivors and the prisoners of concentration camps speaks of the atmosphere of silence and blocked communication within the families and between generations. (6, 7) In the case of our group, however, we have to do with a double taboo: secret regarding the most fundamental issue, i.e., who the person is, and secret concerning what the person experienced.
References
|
