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?