Survivors Question I'm doing a school project on surviors of the Holocaust. The project is due on March the 23rd. I wanted to know if there was anyway you send me any information you can find. Daniel Mittleman answers: I am one of the people who answers questions at The Holocaust History Project. There are several web sites you can visit to collect information about survivors of the Holocaust. First, you might choose to visit The Shoah Foundation at http://www.vhf.org/ They are a nonprofit organization dedicated to videotaping and archiving interviews of Holocaust survivors all over the world. You might visit The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at http://www.ushmm.org/ And at that site take a look at Jewish Displace Persons http://www.ushmm.org/~osa/dp/index.htm and The Displaced Persons' Camp Experience http://www.ushmm.org/~osa/dpcampex.htm These pages (and their links) talk about what happened to many of the survivors in the years immediately following WWII as they were moved through displaced persons and refugee camps. Also among those links is a pointer to the Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. If you would like to read some of the testimonies and statements survivors have made, you might want to visit the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies/homepage.html For more general information you might start with our essay at http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/general.shtml and also visit The Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center at http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/ (in particular look at the questions and answers section). Then consider visiting Yad Vashem at http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/ Most of these sites have links to other sites as well, so you could well find a whole host of additional information out there. I hope these pointers are enough to get you started on your search. Daniel Mittleman Question: Can you please refer me to information pertaining to the psychological effects and treatments of the survivors, and what became of the survivors who weren't able to recover? Thank you. Harry W. Mazal OBE Responds: There are a number of resources that you might wish to consult. The following books available in most good libraries might be useful to your work: Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp Elie Cohen c. 1953, W.W. Norton This book deals with a psychological analysis of both prisoner and guard behavior in the Nazi concentration camps. Much post-Holocaust behavior can be traced back to patterns established in the camps. Medical & Psychological Effects of Concentration Camps Robert Krell, c. 1997, Transaction Publishers ISBN 1-56000-290-5 Legacy of the Holocaust: Psychohistorical Themes in the Second Generation (Research in Clinical Psychology, No. 12) Robert M. Price c. 1985, Umi Research Press ASIN 0835716279 "The author, himself a child of survivors investigates the lives of children of survivors...." History and Memory After Auschwitz Dominick La Capra c. 1998, Cornell University Press ISBN 0-8014-3496-3 A Study of Lanzman's Camnus', and Spiegelman's interpretations of the Jewish Holocaust. There is also considerable information available on the Internet: One very valuable resource is: "AMCHA - National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust and the Second Generation." Their material can be seen at: http://www.amcha.org/ A huge bibliography on the Holocaust that includes at least 3 references to psychological problems of survivors and their offspring can be seen at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/survivor-memoirs-bib.html A paper presented by Dr. George Halasz entitled: "Children of Child Survivors of the Holocaust: Can Trauma be Transmitted Across the Generations?" can be seen at: http://www.psychematters.com/papers/halasz.htm "24 Publications Concerning Traumatic Amnesia in Holocaust Survivors" can be seen at: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/25holocst.html A large paper entitled "The Impact of the Holocaust, On Survivors and Their Children" can be viewed at: http://www.billwilliams.org/HOLOCAUST/holocaust.html Another paper entitled: "Intergenerational Transmission in Families of Holocaust Survivors: The Relationship of Working Through the Holocaust to Values and Social Perception" can be seen at: http://complex.fiz.huji.ac.il/~mult2020/chaitin.html The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an interesting chapter on their site entitled Psychological Trauma and the Holocaust. http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/trauma/right.htm Many of the sites listed above have cross-references to other valuable resources. I hope that you find this material useful to your research. Yours sincerely, Harry W. Mazal OBE back to the list of questions
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