What Do Holocaust Survivors Feel Today Toward Their Perpetrators? Shalom Robinson, M.D., and Sara Metzer, M.S.W. Results Of the 20 survivors interviewed, 15 were females and 5 males. Four were younger than 60; twelve were aged 61-70; and four were older than 70 at the time of the interview. Thirteen of the interviewees were children younger than 10 when the war broke out, and three were born close to the beginning of the war; none were born after the war began. Thirteen had an academic education, six had finished high school, and one elementary school. Fifteen were still married; twelve of the group were from Eastern Europe. Sixteen had lived in towns before the war. Most of the interviewees' parents had been engaged in trade, and the economic situation of most of their families was good or very good. Eighteen of the interviewees were schoolchildren or before school age when the war began. During the war eleven of the interviewees were in ghettos, and half of the interviewees were eventually in concentration camps. Three of them were even taken on death marches. In only ten cases did one or both parents of interviewees survive the war; 14 of them had siblings who survived. Tables 1 and 2 indicate intensity of feelings toward Germans and toward the people of the country where the survivors lived during the Holocaust. Table 1: Intense Negative Feelings Today (number of interviewees who chose a score of 4 to 7 for the feeling) The feeling Attitude toward Germans Attitude toward the other nation Hatred 13 6 Anxiety 9 3 Contempt 10 6 Anger 14 5 Desires for revenge 8 4 Table 2: Intense Positive Feelings Today (number of interviewees who chose a score of 4 to 7 for the feeling) The feeling Attitude toward Germans Attitude toward the other nation Appreciation 6 7 Positive Feelings 3 7 Envy 2 0 Most of the interviewees expressed intense negative feelings toward the Germans, and less so toward the peoples among which they had lived. More interviewees expressed positive feelings toward their neighbors in the past than did toward the Germans. Most of the interviewees could not remember feelings toward the Germans from the period before the war because they were young children at that time. During the war, their feelings toward the Germans developed into fear, anxiety, and wariness. When the war ended and they learned about the murder of a large part of their family and about the scale of the genocide against the Jewish people, feelings of anger and hatred arose. Some of the interviewees expressed this in words such as: "What have we done to them?" "Why did they kill our people?" [Page 2 of 3]