Holocaust survivor relatives ‘deserve trauma help’

The gates of Auschwitz, where at least 1.1 million prisoners died during the Holocaust. Picture: Contributed

A CAMPAIGN started in Scotland is calling for help to be given to grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who have inherited the trauma from their relatives.

Clinical depression, anxiety, addiction and eating disorders are some of the conditions activists say are affecting the descendants of survivors.

They believe the trauma has been passed on through the retelling of relatives harrowing stories.

The group, called Never Again Ever, is calling for better mental health provision to treat the inherited trauma.

Started by 31-year-old Dan Glass in Glasgow the project has now involved thousands of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.

In just over a year it has grown to have operating bases in Berlin, London and Glasgow.

Mr Glass explained: “All four of my grandparents narrowly avoided the gas chambers in Auschwitz and countless of their friends met with this fate.

“For my father it was a daily conversation in my teens and early twenties and even though I very profoundly understood his pain, one day I had to say to him ‘Dad, I can’t talk about this anymore’.”

He continued: “I started to speak to other grandchildren of Holocaust victims, survivors and psychologists and I realised we are still carrying the trauma of our relatives 70 years after it ended and that this was not healing for anyone.

“I realised that if they could speak to us beyond the grave many would have agreed the mourning has to stop and be replaced with something more constructive.”

He added: “It is a matter of real urgency that we shift focus from melancholic memorialisation to positive action to stop the baton of pain crossing over to the next generation and turn a sea of melancholy into the joyful celebration of lives lost, otherwise what have we learned?”

Research into how trauma impacts on grandchildren of Holocaust survivors varies.

Some studies conclude there is no effect of trauma two generations on while some claim the breast milk of survivors was affected by stress hormones.

Others in the field of epigenetics claim the atrocities altered the DNA of victims descendants, meaning they have different stress hormone profiles to their peers.

Psychologist Ruth Barnett, whose Jewish father narrowly escaped the Holocaust by fleeing from Germany to Shanghai, says she has witnessed inherited trauma in some of her clients.

She said: “Constantly talking about events like the gas chambers to grandchildren is a way that traumatised people try to get rid of it by sicking it up.

“But unless it is processed properly, they make even more anxiety for themselves and other generations.”