Holocaust Escapees

According to the texts and eyewitness accounts, the Holocaust had horrendous effects on the people who lived through it. During this time Jews were being rounded up and put into concentration camps by order of the German government. Writings and testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust are around even to this day. According to these sources, Holocaust survivors suffered tremendously since they were treated as less than human , they lost loved ones, and were constantly abused.

The Holocaust which was one of many of the controversial events that have happened in the history of our world demonstrated a significant amount of cruelty and dehumanization. Because of such a controversial event, many have suffered through physical and unfortunately psychological upheaval and distress. With previous knowledge and novels’ read on the Holocaust, it came to be known that the event was triggered through obedience and conformity due to the not specifically the Germans’ beliefs of anti-Semitic and propaganda, but more of leader Adolf Hitler. The time of the Holocaust was used to dehumanize which enhanced the understanding of mental health and human psychology. During the Holocaust, many psychological principles affected individuals forever. The principles include groupthink and of course knowing the outcome of the event. Such principles sooner explain the reality of life because it stresses how individuals react due to their past experiences like the Holocaust and most importantly how traumatic events build them as who they are today.  Innocent Jews went through starvation, terrible working conditions, and the elimination of race through torture such as gas chambers. Furthermore, the history of this controversial event is now being used to be alert of the health and wellness of those who have gone through such events that sooner change their behavior and mentality for the better or even worse.

The implications of the Holocaust and the extent to which perceptions of the event have shaped Jewish views of identity are among the most crucial in today’s society. Literature revealed that although children of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators did not experience events directly, they might suffer in some form. Jewish descendants experience symptoms of trauma and bear the burden of replacing the dead. According to clinical experience and empirical research, this clinical population seems to have specific disturbances focused on difficulties in coping with stress and a high vulnerability to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This literature review will focus first on how trauma is transmitted and will then discuss the existence of any indicators of psychopathology in the offspring of Holocaust survivors.

The Holocaust, yet another unpleasant time in history tainted with the blood and suffering of man. Human beings tortured, executed and starved for hatred and radical ideas. Yet with many tragedies there are survivors, those who refused to die on another man’s command. These victims showed enormous willpower, they overcame human degradation and tragedies that not only pushed their beliefs in god, but their trust in fellow people. It was people like Elie Wiesel author of “Night”, Eva Galler,Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser, and Solomon Radasky that survived, whose’ mental and physical capabilities were pushed to limits that are difficult to conceive. Each individual experiences were different, but their survival tales not so far-reaching to where the fundamental themes of fear, family, religion and self-preservation played a part in surviving. Although some of these themes weren’t always so useful for survival.

The Holocaust was a time that left a big scar on the culture of our world as a whole and there are still people suffering from it still to this day. In my investigation I will be looking at to what extent did the Holocaust affect the survivors, both mentally and physically upon return home from the concentration camps. I will be looking at books, both present and from the time period that talk about how they felt and what happened when they got home. I will also surf the internet, find interviews with survivors, look for articles, and newspapers from the time in order to get a better idea of what was going on in their life. I will then compare and contrast the facts at hand and pull out and mix what is the same and

As part of the human coping mechanism, people hope that life can return to normal after a traumatic event. This is rarely the case, however. Many prisoners released from concentration camps continued to suffer after being released. In the report “Multigenerational Perspectives on Coping with the Holocaust Experience” written by Dan Bar-On et al, numerous studies are cited that support the claim that the Holocaust left a lasting effect on its victims, causing marital problems, anxiety, depression, and other personality disorders. The authors cite a correlation between the concept of the “conspiracy of silence,” the survivors’ perceived need to forget and move on from their traumatic past and the prolonged emotional and behavioral effects of the Holocaust

Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.

Alena Synjova once stated, “ I’d like to go away alone where there are other, nicer people, somewhere into the far unknown, there, where no one kills another. Maybe more of us, a thousand strong, will reach this goal before too long” (Volavková, 1994, p. 50). During the Holocaust, people craved opportunity to escape to a place where there were polite people and no one killed each other. The Holocaust affected everyone, ranging from the elderly to the young children, who were faced with horrific situations. They witnessed the death of the people around them and were forced to live under unmentionable conditions. The holocaust altered non-Jewish and Jewish

The holocaust was a tragic time which involved the killing of Jews to create a ‘pure race’ in Germany. Jacob Boas analyzes the stories of five young Jewish children through the book “We Are Witnesses,” who were forced through the hardships of war. Through the perspectives of David Rubinowicz, Yitzhak Rudashevski, Moshe Flinker, Éva Heyman, and Anne Frank, the struggles of the five children are clear as they try to hold on to their ideals while still fighting for their lives. “We Are Witnesses,” by Jacob Boas adopts repetition and diction through the eyes of David Rubinowicz, imagery using Yitzhak Rudashevski, repetition and imagery via Moshe Flinker, repetition with Éva Heyman, and repetition and syntax by Anne Frank to brandish how Jewish

Since the start of the Nazi occupation in Europe, Jewish communities and individuals were struggling with survival, and fought for their existence. Many Jews tried to evade or overcome the degrading Nazi decrees, that stripped them of civil and human rights, triggered isolation and denied them a livelihood. The Nazis simply wanted to create a condition in which no human being, particularly Jewish, can live or even exist. For a long time, the Jews’ view on the sanctity of life, a duty to protect one’s life, encouraged them to endure the period of intense pain and suffering. From past experience, the Jews thought that the terrible events of the Nazis would pass, the same as the pogroms. Over a period of centuries, from the Crusades to the

The Nazis killed over six million Jews and millions of other Polish and Soviet civilians in the Holocaust. They also killed gypsies, physically and mentally disabled people and homosexuals. The number of survivors today are quickly dwindling down. Clinical psychologist Natan Kellermann defines a Holocaust survivor as any Jew who lived under Nazi occupation and was threatened by the “final solution” (Kellermann 199). This definition can be applied to not only Jews, but to anyone in general whose life was threatened by the Nazis. When these survivors were liberated, they believed the suffering was over, but for many, this wasn’t the case. The trauma of the horrors they faced is still evident in their life. By analyzing the effects of post traumatic stress disorder after the Holocaust, readers can see that the aftermath of the Holocaust is still prevalent in the survivor’s everyday life; This is important to show that while the trauma may not be overcome, the survivor can be more at peace with the events.

“The fact is they know I went through hell.” -Professor Bacharach, Holocaust Survivor. Ever since many centuries ago, Jewish people were treated unfairly and unjustly according to their religion and characteristics. The Holocaust was a fearful and painful genocide because of anti-semitism throughout European countries. Up to six million Jews died in the harrowing genocide, along with the death of many other religious and ethnical groups ("Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution"). As much as a fraction of the number of Jews survived. With much grief and sorrow during the Holocaust, the survivors had to suffer the emotional and physical trauma after the event. Survivors had to face the reality of rebuilding their lives after the

The Holocaust is a very large topic with many subtopics within, which many people have never heard of. One in particular is the Hidden Children of the Holocaust. Like a majority of individuals, I never heard of this topic before, until I started my inquiry work. Hiding children during the holocaust was an effort to save thousands of children’s lives. The children were hidden in different ways, either with false identities, underground, and with or without their parents. The children with false identities were allowed to participate in everyday life activities, like attend school and socialize with children their age, which in the long run this lead to less emotional and mental issues. However, the children that were hidden and not allowed to leave their hiding spots often faced boredom, pain, and torment. Some children were capable of being hid with their parents while other children were not. Depending on the situation the child was in, depends on the effects it had on the child during this time. In this paper, I will be discussing works by two scholars, Natalia Aleksiun’s Gender and Daily Lives of Jews in Hiding in Eastern Galicia and Judy Mitchell’s Children of the Holocaust. Aleksiun’s article talks about the daily lives of Jews in hiding and also about how they prepared their hideouts. Aleksiun’s article mainly focuses on children that were hidden with their families. In Mitchell’s article, he focuses on the hidden children and gives examples/survivor stories on what it

When one cannot deal with guilt within oneself, the feeling of guilt can be transferred to affect another. Art struggles throughout his life to understand why he never had a great relationship with his father. After trying to write with no luck, Art heads to his regular appointment with Pavel, another Holocaust survivor. Pavel suggests that maybe “(Vladek) took his guilt out on YOU, where it was safe… on the REAL survivor.” (7, p 44) Vladek felt guilty about surviving the Holocaust, but instead of accepting it,

In the article “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory,” Marianne Hirsch discusses generational memory and how second-generation memory operates in relation to catastrophic events such as the Holocaust. Furthermore, Hirsch demonstrates that cultural and generational trauma shape the identity and feelings of those who identify with catastrophe regardless of them actually experiencing tragedy.