Week 4

This week in Learning from the Holocaust we continued learning about second generation survivors as well as second generation perpetrators. From the video we finished in class I learned that second generation survivors tend to distance themselves and seldom come to their parents about their own problems because they find them so much less important than the problems their parents faced. Second generation survivors are often curious about their parents past experiences and memories of the Jewish Holocaust but are often too afraid to ask questions because they don't want to cause their parents the pain of retelling those memories.

Often, these survivors are more creatively expressive (see propeller model) than their parents and tend to reconcile with their trauma by painting or drawing. First generations survivors, or really anyone who has suffered severe trauma, seek safety first. They wish to establish themselves and what they are living for before the telling of their story. Some first generation survivors of WWII (not necessarily even the Holocaust) would/do suffer from PTSD and even have abnormal fears that were created by the trauma they endured.

Our interviewee Nicole Backer believes that it may not have even occurred to the Germans to help or hide the Jews. Backer's grandparents were considered first generation survivors even though they were never imprisoned. This makes Backer a third generation survivor.

Finally, we watched a film on second generation Nazi perpetrators many of whose relatives were SS members. These people described their contempt of their likeness toward their now deceased Nazi family members, some even changed their last names in an attempt to distance themselves from the Holocaust while others wrote books about their own experiences and emotions toward their family.

For those second generation perpetrators that never changed their names, are they often recognized by the public? Or is the public's knowledge of the Holocaust becoming too limited for them to be recognized?

Week 3

This week we focused on survivors of the holocaust, particularly second generation survivors. From the readings and class discussion I leaned about the different effects the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath had on those who did make it out alive. Many survivors did not want to have children but those who did often had many as though to make up for all of those lives lost. These parents also tended to be overprotective and and quiet about their past.

I also learned more about what is known as the 1.5 generation survivors. These survivors were children during the Holocaust (up to 14 years old) and usually resided in camps or ghettos. These children could be spit up into groups depending on their level of development and ability to comprehend what was happening around them. This 1.5 generation is named because these children were said to be too young to have completely grasped the situations they were in and therefore should not be labeled as first generation survivors. Many of these children, specifically ranging from 11-14 years old were forced to grow up very quickly and make decisions they would never have been faced with otherwise.
I was curious about how exactly these choices and forced maturity affected them through the rest of their lives, did they expect their children to take on responsibility at a young age? Or did they shelter them from adulthood and keep their children's childhoods as carefree as possible?

Lastly, we watched a video of a woman who managed to survive five different camps with her sister. Since the war she has written many poems and stories about her experiences particularly about her father and their last goodbye as well as her rescue. I found her poems to be very vivid and heart-wrenching but it gave me much more insight into the turmoil and experiences some of the Jews went through while inside the camps.