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Orphaned Child Survivors Compared to Child Survivors Whose Parents Also Survived the Holocaust Shalom Robinson, M.D., Michal Rapaport-Bar-Sever, Judith Rapaport
Discussion
Surviving parents were often together in hiding with their child, or if they stayed in another hiding place, and not in a concentration camp, they still maintained some contact with the hidden child during the war. It is no surprise that children whose parents survived could have an easier adjustment after the war. They were psychologically less affected by the persecution, so psychological development could be more normal and adequate.
The presence of parents after the war, including those who returned from the camps, helped the children in adjusting to school, to society, and to Israel when they immigrated here. As a result of parental support, these children could gain a better education than orphaned children.
Persons orphaned as children during the War had to struggle for their survival without parental support during the Holocaust and build their lives without this support afterwards. No wonder that after enduring more pain and suffering during the Holocaust and not being fortunate to have the helping hand of a parent during the war and after, the orphaned child survivors suffered and still suffer more psychologically and physically than persons whose parents survived the Holocaust.
In two previous parts of this project it was found that the suffering from symptoms of the survivor syndrome after the war was in positive association to the severity of the trauma which the survivors endured during the Holocaust. (4) (1)
The orphaned child survivors underwent more difficult adjustment after the war to school and society than the other group. Their adjustment and absorption in Israel was not as successful as that of people whose parents survived. In the previous part of our project we already found that survivors who suffered harsher persecution did not adjust as well after the war. (1) (4)
Persons who were orphaned noticed the influence of their own experiences during the Holocaust on their children to a greater degree than the other group. This finding can be understood because the Holocaust issue is raised frequently in their families as their spouse is also a Holocaust survivor more often than in the group whose parents survived.
The trauma of separation from parents during childhood and subsequent loss of the parents who were killed may be in itself a severe stress and a risk factor which causes psychological problems during childhood and later in adult life. (5) (6)
There are also other studies which did not find an association between childhood parental bereavement and depression in later life. (7) (8) But as C. Tennant et al. write, (8) parental death in conjunction with additional depressive factors may potentiate the risk of psychic morbidity.
In our study it was found that the orphaned children suffered severer persecution and this is an additional factor which together with parental death may be the reason for the difference in suffering from symptoms of the survivor syndrome and in coping and adjustment between the two groups.
The shadow of the Holocaust is darker even now, more than 50 years after it occurred, in families of Holocaust survivors who were orphaned during the war than in families of persons at least one of whose parents survived.
References
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