Eugenics
and Survival:
Psychology
of Manipulating and Surviving Interventions of Human Life
Submitted in partial
fulfillment
of the requirements for the
degree
of Bachelor of Arts at Union
Institute and University
Amy Jo Deutl
September 2009
Faculty Advisor:
__________________________________
Joanna Meyer
Abstract
This
study considers the psychology of manipulating and surviving
interventions of human life, such as eugenics and the racial hygiene
program utilized by Hitler in World War II. It includes an
explanation of eugenics, how eugenics manifested itself into the
atrocities of the Holocaust, and the subsequent effects on people who
survived such trauma.
Chapter
One focuses on the concept of eugenics by Francis Galton and the
development of eugenics in the United States followed by Germany’s
use of eugenics in its attempt to create a master race. Chapter Two
delves into the personal lives and experiences of people who survived
the Holocaust. Chapter Three looks at the results of survivor trauma
and treatment associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The
fourth and final chapter gives an overview of the spiritual
connections associated with eugenics, the Holocaust, and the healing
process.
A
Preface is provided describing my previous studies, the progress made
toward arriving at this study, and a review of my culminating study.
Also included are a Reference, an Annotated Bibliography, and my
complete Study Bibliography.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter
One
Eugenics
and Its Role in Sterilization
and
Controlling Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter
Two
Holocaust
Survivors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 26
Chapter
Three
Surviving
Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 46
Chapter
Four
Spiritual
Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 54
References
… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 59
Annotated
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 61
Study
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . 64
Preface
This
culminating study marks my fourth of five semesters at Union
Institute & University and Vermont College. My final semester
will consist of Student Teaching in a 3rd/4th
grade classroom along with the completion of my Qualifying Portfolio
and a Licensure Portfolio to qualify as an elementary education
teacher. I began this long journey at the age of forty-eight by
having the courage to walk through the doors of Community College of
Vermont to inquire about beginning a degree program. To my surprise
after one intense semester, my life’s work experience gained me
more than fifty credits toward an Associates Degree. After pursuing
a degree in Prevention and Social Services at Woodbury College on a
part-time schedule, I transferred to Vermont College’s ADP to work
full-time on a Liberal Arts Bachelor’s Degree. I found my home
here at Vermont College where I discovered that I could continue
working, raising a family, and still complete my degree in less than
five years. It has been a most rewarding experience and I am
grateful for the system, the advisors, and the administrators that
have encouraged and guided me through this entire process.
I
enrolled in the weekend program for my first study with Ann Stanton
and chose to look at child behavior and the study of Abnormal
Psychology focusing on ADHD, ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), and
Bipolar Disorder. My eyes were opened to some highly regarded
psychologists and educators in the field of child behavior. Many of
the books that I used for this study have become a part of my
accumulating library for use in my teaching career. I especially
appreciated and gained much knowledge from Green’s The
Explosive Child,
Greenspan’s The
Challenging Child,
and Driven to
Distraction: Recognizing and coping with ADD from Childhood Through
Adulthood by
Hallowell and Ratey.
During
this first semester I met a history degree criterion by studying the
history of mental illness and its treatment. I reviewed the theories
of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler and how mental illness
is diagnosed and treated. Of particular interest was the history of
how mental illness was treated in the 1800’s by placing patients in
insane asylums and how that system began to deteriorate after 1960,
due to war, the economy, and social changes that occurred. We are
dealing with the outcome of those changes today in schools and
society because a large portion of our population, which has been
integrated into our communities, struggle every day with mental
illness. This new system of treating the mentally ill has not been
as successful as it could be. As a result, the children in our
schools have many more special needs today because of psychological
problems within families that have not received proper treatment and
care.
Included
in this first semester was a seminar with Sarah Mitchell entitled
“Women Reading Women” that felt like a summer vacation. Several
classic books that I had always wanted to read, but never took the
opportunity to read until this seminar, became alive for me through
the teaching strategies used by Sarah. I had never heard of the
terms text to text, text to self, and text to the world until I sat
in a classroom with Sarah Mitchell. Since that time, I have
witnessed elementary teachers using this technique with K-6th
graders and I am continually amazed at the improvement in reading
comprehension gained through this process. It is a technique that I
continue to use with my own reading and also when I have the
opportunity to teach whether it be children or adults.
With
pressure from my daughter (an elementary teacher) and the ADP faculty
I jumped off the cliff and decided to pursue teacher licensure
beginning in my second semester. This involved a study on
Foundations of Education which proved to be an eye opener on what I
perceived education to be. My advisor, Eileen Sears, was a fairly
new middle school teacher with enough energy to run a small nuclear
plant! She inspired me out of sheer fear to put my all into this
semester. It truly was a foundational semester for me as I was able
to answer questions that I had never even thought about before. I am
grateful for her gently nudging me out of my comfort zone of what I
thought education was.
My thoughts changed drastically
from the beginning to the conclusion of this semester because I was
sold on the traditional form of education that I experienced and
excelled at as a student back in the sixties and seventies. The
progressive movement within education appeared to move too far in the
other direction, leaving children without any idea of authority,
order, and knowledge of the basics that we were all brought up with.
My own theory of what education should be is a happy balance between
the two approaches to education. The old saying goes, “Don’t
throw the baby out with the bath water,” so I’m holding onto the
basics but moving forward with more progressive ways to teach. I
researched the history and philosophy of education learning about
Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, and Montessori and came to the understanding
that it is necessary to choose the very best ideas from these
pioneers to successfully engage students and provide them with a
learning experience that will last throughout a lifetime. My study
on multiculturalism and diversity in the classroom made me realize
how this field has had to develop over the years in order to include
children from all backgrounds and ethnicity in the classroom learning
experience. The PBS film, A
Class Divided,
captures a teacher’s experiment with her 4th
grade classroom and highlights the essence of what it means to be
accepting of everyone no matter what their color, religion, or
handicap might be. It’s always a good lesson when the shoe is
placed on the other foot to really understand what people experience
when they are being discriminated against.
The
natural progression for a teacher licensure student is to follow this
semester with a study on Curriculum and Classroom Instruction. My
third semester was exhilarating as I began to understand the nuts and
bolts of what teaching actually involves with hands-on observations
and practical experience in the classroom. My advisor this semester
was Eileen Sear’s mother-in-law, Martha VanderWolk. I left one
over-achiever for another! Seriously, I am extremely thankful for
the expertise and caring guidance provided by both of these women.
By now I had completed and
passed the Praxis I test for elementary education teachers. I spent
several days and weeks in several different classrooms between Barre
City and Warren with kindergarteners and every grade up through
middle school grades. I began to realize the importance of
understanding how teachers teach and how children learn and wished
that I had taken this route before having my own children. It would
have been so much easier for them to have had a parent with a
background in teaching to get them through the difficult times they
both experienced. Thankfully, both of my children graduated from
high school, but my son did not fit the mold of the teaching
strategies that were in place at the time so he suffered through
several years without any alternatives offered to him until his
senior year. Though he tested extremely high in math and science, he
is very much a tactile learner and learns best with a hands-on
approach. We had to push our intentions on the guidance counselor in
order to allow him to attend a vocational center for computer
sciences. He excelled in this program the last year of high school
and without it he may well have walked away from a high school
diploma.
My
study of curriculum covered the theory of backward design which
basically teaches beginning with the end in mind. Understanding
by Design by Wiggins
& McTigue covers this curriculum plan in detail and their book is
a part of my growing library. I discovered that a constructivist
classroom is children-centered rather than teacher-centered learning.
Oftentimes, the teacher is learning right along with the children,
which may seem a little backwards at first, but when a child loses
the fear that he needs to know everything, it allows him to venture
further into the learning experience by taking risks and learning
from his mistakes. The
Foxfire Experience
by Wigginton was an exceptional book that I was first introduced to
here at Vermont College. This teacher used a project to engage
students in learning and by doing so he covered math, reading,
writing, history, science, and sociology. It should be required
reading by every teacher going into the field. This doesn’t mean
that we all have to copy his idea of publishing a student newspaper,
but the concept of using projects to engage students and provide them
with a learning experience that they will remember and use in future
years is invaluable.
This
semester’s greatest accomplishment was when I received a passing
score on the Praxis II Elementary Education test which took me by
surprise. As a student over the age of fifty, I had to deal with
some unknown fears—like taking a test with hundreds of students so
much younger and smarter than myself. I guess I didn’t realize how
much older I was than those twenty-something’s until I stepped into
the crowd and felt completely out of my league. This might be what a
child experiences when she first enters a new classroom from a
different town or maybe even from a different country. It’s scary!
All of this has prepared me for my culminating semester. It hasn’t
been easy, but it has all been worth it!
My
culminating semester study of eugenics and survival became a personal
journey of understanding the concepts of posttraumatic stress
disorder through the lens of the Holocaust. I understand now why my
advisor, Joanna Meyer, cautioned me that this study might be too
broad to accomplish in one semester. The atrocities of the Holocaust
would have been more than enough to cover in one semester, but I’m
thankful to have included the history of eugenics and how it played a
part in the progressive social programs of Vermont and other states
in the early 1900’s and then transformed into Nazi Germany’s
racial cleansing and Hitler’s ideology of a master race.
A
study on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder could have also been more than
enough to fill an entire semester. Instead, the plan of combining
these three subjects created a well-rounded picture to provide
answers to my questions of why, how, and what. I was reminded of my
conversations with my first advisor at Vermont College, Ann Stanton,
when exploring subjects for my first study. She gently guided me
away from a study on grief and trauma at that time, but I had no idea
that I would eventually come back around to include it in my
culminating study years later!
I
initially struggled to understand how this study might relate to
education, curriculum, and teaching in general, but I can now clearly
see the correlation between these subjects. This entire study can be
wrapped up in a message about what prejudice may lead to and how
tolerance is imperative. The classroom is a microcosm of the world
these children will experience in life. As educators, we must teach
children the value of each individual life including the similarities
and differences and the importance of how to get along with our
neighbors. Whether I become a classroom teacher or a school
counselor, I will use what I have learned in this last semester to be
aware of how students may be affected from trauma they have
experienced first-hand or through generational trauma.
At
this time, I am looking forward to accomplishing the daunting
responsibility and challenge of student teaching next semester. Not
only will everything I have learned through ADP at Vermont College be
a part of who I am as an educator, but it will also influence my life
as a parent, friend, American citizen, and missionary. I extend my
deepest gratitude to every advisor, faculty member, administrator,
and fellow student at Vermont College.
Chapter 1
Eugenics: Its History and
Role of Manipulating Population
One of the most horrific
tragedies of the 20th
century was the annihilation of nearly 6 million Jews, gypsies, and
homosexuals, in addition to 250 thousand physically and mentally
handicapped individuals, during the time of World War II. Most
people are well aware of that tragedy, but few know about or are
reluctant to discuss America’s eugenic campaign. In one decade
eugenics was responsible for approximately 60,000 U.S. citizens being
forcibly sterilized in an effort to promote a white, Nordic master
race. Vermont’s eugenic survey records remain hidden in
confidential cases files so one can only guess how many people lost
their identity and humanity due to Vermont’s 1931 voluntary
sterilization law. This dark piece of U.S. history that included
Vermont and involved scientists and medical professionals remained
concealed for many years. Ultimately, arrogance and racism played a
role in altering the course of eugenics as a study of human heredity
by using forced sterilization and death as a means of manipulating
the population.
The act of wiping out entire
races exists today in places like Africa where racial cleansing
recently changed the face of the entire country of Rwanda in a matter
of weeks. Racial cleansing even dates back thousands of years to the
time of Pharaoh when he ordered the Egyptian midwives to kill the
Hebrew women’s babies at birth because he feared their numbers were
growing too fast causing a threat to his country’s security. But,
it is Francis Galton, referred to as the grandfather of eugenics, who
can be credited for setting the eugenics stage at the top of the
slippery slope that spurred on the ideological foundations of forming
a master race and culminated in the Holocaust. Perhaps it’s unfair
to place all the blame on Galton, but he certainly was a significant
contributor to a complex chain of events.
The discussion of and
enthusiasm for eugenics were silenced for many years after the
atrocities of World War II. Enough time has passed now to begin the
discussions because most of the perpetrators have passed away. Today
we still place biological value on individuals’ lives through
genetic counselors, government committees, and life-insurance
companies. The difference with eugenics today is that the term has
been replaced with genetics and the hardness of the Victorian age in
which Galton existed has been replaced with the “smooth veneer of
medical respectability” (Brookes, 2004, p. xviii). The language of
one of today’s most influential and controversial philosophers,
Peter Singer, sounds eerily similar to the scientists and medical
professionals of the 1920’s and 1930’s. In the video featuring
Princeton University’s Bioethics professor, Peter
Singer: A Dangerous Mind, Singer
proclaims that “an infant is not a person” and a “newborn baby
doesn’t have a right to life until it’s capable of understanding
that he has a future.” In a segment of the same video, Karl
Brandt, Hitler’s personal physician who was executed as a Nazi war
criminal, had a similar mindset when he spoke at his trial at
Nuremberg on July 19, 1947: “I am deeply conscious that when I
said "Yes" to euthanasia I did so with the deepest
conviction, just as it is my conviction today, that it was right.”
If history repeats itself, then it would be wise to study the origins
of eugenics, the players, and the circumstances that resulted in
sterilization, euthanasia, and murder in the United States and in
Europe.
Francis Galton led an
extravagant life as an English country gentleman in the late 1800’s
after a failed attempt at medical school and an inheritance from his
father’s death that allowed him to pursue a life of travel as an
African explorer. His travels proved successful as he soon was
honored with several prestigious awards from the Royal Geographical
Society for map-making throughout the continent. His successes in
the area of geography, statistics, and weather maps placed him in the
same company as scientists, so when his study of heredity and
eugenics became known it naturally had scientific influence.
He was a product of the age of
Enlightenment and was greatly influenced by his cousin, Charles
Darwin, to disregard his Christian beliefs and to grab hold of the
tenets of evolution. It was a time when anything seemed possible and
God was optional. Brookes reminds us that Galton’s entire
scientific career is infused with the spirit of these optimistic
times. Racial attitudes were not new to the nineteenth century, but
race became a broader term referring not only to ethnicity, but also
to class and social status. Galton desired to improve the human
race, believing this is what nature and evolution intended. Instead
of letting nature take its course, ideas of marriage restrictions
based on class and social status began to steer Galton’s notions of
eugenics as a religion, because “any custom established by a
powerful authority soon becomes looked upon as a duty…which is
rarely questioned” (Brookes, 2004, p. 278).
Hereditary Genius
was probably Galton’s most telling record of his ideas on race and
social stereotyping. One of the chapters is entitled “The
comparative worth of different races” where he rates the various
races based on his scale of human intelligence. Through the
so-called science of eugenics, social progress was now seen as a
matter of biological process. Though his writings were met with some
skepticism, he did succeed in creating a stir in the newspapers with
endless reviews and comments. It may have been at this time that
Galton’s theory caught the attention of an aspiring zoologist in
America by the name of Charles Davenport. It was Davenport (the real
father of eugenics) “who twisted Galton’s stillborn Victorian
vision into self-righteous social-biological action” (Black, 2003,
p. 385).
According to the website
sponsored by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2002), Davenport was a
prominent biologist of his time and the director of the Biology
Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He established the
Eugenics Records Office where men and women were trained in the
science of eugenics and data collection. Davenport built upon
Galton’s program of eugenics by focusing on the goal of improving
the human race by inducing young people to make a more reasonable
selection of marriage mates. Davenport determined that “young
people should fall in love intelligently” and should not rely on
their emotions when choosing a marriage partner. His plan went a
step further to include “control by the state of the propagation of
the mentally incompetent” (DNA from the Beginning, chap 14, Bio).
Davenport’s interest in
eugenics expanded with his fascination and association with Francis
Galton. He used Galton’s theories and methods in statistics to add
scientific merit to his eugenic surveys. Galton also inspired
Davenport’s most precious revelation which was “the study of
superiority and ancestry, the principle Galton called eugenics”
(Black, 2003, p. 35). At the same time, the work of an Austrian monk
by the name of Gregory Mendel was rediscovered by botanists in
Holland, Germany, and Austria. He had proven the laws of inheritance
of certain traits in pea plants. Davenport’s interest in the
science of experimental evolution naturally drew him into the area of
the rediscovered Mendelian theory of heredity. He combined this
study with the work of Francis Galton who had coined the term
eugenics in 1883, and was determined to find the scientific basis for
the inheritance of physical, mental, and moral characteristics in
humans (Black, p. 35). The great flaw of Davenport’s theories of
inheritance was that he was applying Mendel’s simplistic theory of
heredity based on plants and animals to a very complex set of human
characteristics. Perhaps if he had studied Mendel’s spirituality
and had come to understand his recognition of the sacredness of human
life in God’s eyes the eugenics story may have taken a turn for the
better.
There is a natural tendency for
humans to want control and to have power over their lives. That is
exactly what happened with the study of eugenics over the past
century. Certain individuals used the extremely powerful, scientific
knowledge of heredity and shaped it into their own vehicle which
drastically changed the lives of millions and still affects
ideologies, politics, and the scientific study of genetics to this
very day. It’s sad to think that the study of genetics, and the
reality that it contains the possibility of cures for
life-threatening diseases such as cancer, was postponed for so many
years due to selfish ideals and motivations of certain individuals.
There is a very fine line between good intentions and malice as we
have witnessed in the history of eugenics. It’s important to know
and understand this history so that we don’t find ourselves walking
down the same slippery slope in the not so distant future. As
biologist Ernst Mayr put it so well in his 1984 essay, The
Origin of Human Ethics:
Indeed, eugenics was conceived
by its founders as a way of
lifting humans toward a greater
perfection. It is sadly ironic
that this noble original
objective eventually led to some of the
most heinous crimes mankind has
ever seen.
One
can’t help but think about some of the state and federal programs
that exist today for the betterment of individuals and families.
This isn’t to say that programs such as Headstart, Reach-Up, and
our mental health services are about eugenics and racial hygiene, but
then again, what are the motivations and expected end results of such
programs? The government has collected plenty of personal
information from these clients in order to improve their
circumstances. If there isn’t a system in place with good checks
and balances, this information could be used for malicious purposes,
just as it was in the 1920’s with Vermont’s Eugenic Survey,
especially given the grim economic crisis we face today.
Henry
Perkins of Burlington, VT was born in 1877, to educated and wealthy
parents. His father, George, was a professor at UVM and is
remembered as the father of the college’s modern science
curriculum. Gallagher (1999) wrote that his mother, “exemplified
the feminine complement of Yankee Protestant achievement” (p. 13)
and influenced Henry in his acceptance and respect for women as
intellectual equals, competent scholars, and social leaders. The
large, majestic home his father built and which still stands on South
Prospect Street, is an indication of his privileged upbringing. It
may also explain his attitude of entitlement to the respect and
deference of others around him. Harry was a privileged only child
and was driven to fulfill the ideals of his parents.
Without
knowing someone personally, it is, of course, difficult to make a
judgment of character, so one can only surmise what motivated Harry’s
mother to be as dedicated to the church and foreign missions as she
supposedly was. There is nothing to indicate that her motives were
anything but purely innocent in her work with destitute children, for
example, but too often I have heard and seen the works of
self-righteous, hypocritical Christians proclaiming to be doing God’s
work while passing judgment simultaneously. This kind of attitude is
easily adapted by the children who happen to be within earshot.
It’s
likely that Harry was raised in the midst of such religious hypocrisy
and self-righteousness which influenced his drive to become the
intellectual that he was. He began his career in eugenics as a
successful professor of Zoology at UVM. He also devoted much of his
time to raising a family, activities on campus and in the community,
and generally making a name for himself. This was not difficult to
accomplish riding on the coattails of his father who had been honored
and recognized often for his service to the university and to the
State of Vermont.
A course on heredity offered by
Henry Perkins was inspired by Mendel’s laws of heredity, Charles
Davenport’s Heredity
in Relation to Eugenics
(1911), and Sir J. Walter Thomson’s Heredity
(1908). Thomson’s writing about eugenics came from a more cautious
point of view. He warned that “a program of eugenics must be
conservative, gentle, and enlightened” (Gallagher, 1999, p. 29).
Perkins’ interest was further piqued after receiving a letter from
a fellow eugenicist, Charles Davenport, calling attention to the
disturbing facts concerning Vermont’s drafted men. He went on to
explain that Vermont was nearly at the top of the list as having the
highest rate of defective men examined for draft purposes. Perkins
would use this information to promote the need for eugenics research
and eugenics solutions in the state of Vermont.
Toward the end of the 19th
century, Vermont leaders and writers had become concerned with the 3
D’s (dependency, delinquency, and mental defect) in relation to the
prominent character of Vermont individuals. When teaching his course
on heredity, it was a perfect opportunity to apply a eugenics program
to address this problem that seemed to be worsening when more and
more middle-class families were having fewer children. The
responsibility for the care of mentally and physically handicapped
children was gradually transferred from local communities to state
agencies. The need was so great that places such as Brattleboro
Retreat, the State Hospital for the Insane in Waterbury, and the
State School for the Feeble-minded in Brandon quickly became filled
to capacity. The State School for the Feeble-minded in Brandon,
which eventually became known as the Brandon Training School, opened
its doors in 1912. Interestingly enough, Gallagher (1999) reported
that this was the same year the Vermont legislature passed a bill
entitled, “An Act to Authorize and Provide for the Sterilization of
Imbeciles, Feeble-minded and Insane Persons, Rapists, Confirmed
Criminals, and Other Defectives” (p. 53). The bill was vetoed by
Governor Allen Fletcher, but passed a few years later allowing
sterilization by consent, making the law appear less
unconstitutional.
Harriett E. Abbott and L.
Josephine Webster were the first social workers hired by the Vermont
Children’s Aid Society to expand the organization’s work of
foster care and adoption of needy children. These women were
extremely concerned with the welfare of young girls and women and
their infants who were living in “unwholesome home environments”
(Gallagher, 1999, p. 61) and the issues associated with absent
fathers. Without some kind of intervention, women and their children
would surely continue to experience an endless cycle of poverty and
immorality. Many of these girls were referred to the School for the
Feebleminded in Brandon where they consented to sterilization when
they came to “understand their condition was heredity and that ‘the
treatment’ would enable them to once again live freely in society”
(Gallagher, 1999, p. 64). This kind of intervention is based on the
perception that social dysfunction spreads solely through
reproduction. This is only taking into consideration the nature
aspect of human development while completely ignoring the environment
or nurture side of development. Well-meaning, educated people too
often think they know what is best for individuals without having
complete knowledge of a situation.
Another sad story of Vermont’s
eugenic program was the plight of the Abnaki Indians. They had been
Vermont’s first inhabitants, but because they didn’t own homes
and were considered gypsies many of them were incarcerated in
institutions and eventually sterilized. They are an example of
another group of people who didn’t conform to society’s standards
and were faced with the realities of racism and social status. Many
of the Abnakis were forced to leave their homeland, conceal their
identity, their language, and customs to escape imprisonment and
sterilization. According to Charles Delaney at a symposium at the
Robert Fleming Museum in Burlington, “For Vermont Abnakis, eugenics
was neither science nor a program of human betterment; it was an
agent of their annihilation” (Gallagher, 1999, p. 7).
Vermont’s eugenics program
gained strength when Harriett Abbott obtained training for developing
and implementing a eugenics survey at Davenport’s Eugenics Record
Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The VT Children’s Aid
Society, which funded her training, was then well-equipped to amass
data on a large number of what they referred to as unwholesome
families in need of social services. Relating my own experience as a
peer counselor at a pregnancy resource center, I began to see
patterns of behavior in most of our clients that Webster and Abbott
would have referred to as “incompetent parents and a growing social
cancer” (Gallagher, 1999, p. 67). It’s easy to become cynical
about such a population that exists everywhere in our culture, but
the viewpoint that must be retained is to look at each individual
separately using the wisdom from past experiences and relying on the
hope that there is a plan and purpose for each human being placed on
this earth.
Perkins’s vision of a Vermont
Eugenics Survey became a reality with the help of a $5,000 endowment
from a well-connected native Vermonter, Mrs. Eggleston, who was also
responsible for the incorporation of the Vermont Children’s Aid
Society. Perkins hired Abbott to coordinate Vermont’s Eugenics
Survey, a division of UVM’s zoology department giving it much
needed scientific clout. The Advisory Committee, hand-picked by
Perkins, included only highly educated individuals, Protestants, and
affluent Vermont stock. Obviously, this supposedly non-sectarian and
nonpolitical organization lacked representation from the Vermont
working class, any ethnic minorities, or heaven forbid, Catholics.
After a decade of eugenic abuse of thousands of individuals through
what was called voluntary sterilization, people “ultimately lost
their connection with family, community, and their history—in
short, their humanity” (Gallagher, 1999, p. 125), ironically for
the cause of preventing broken little lives. It would appear to the
families and communities, who were the focus of this well-intentioned
enterprise, that the eugenics survey was orchestrated by Vermont
elitists to cleanse the state of unwanted peoples.
How similar this sounds to the
Nazi’s extermination of Jews, gypsies, and mentally defective
people in order to create a master race of Aryans. In Vermont, to
our knowledge, there were no gas chambers or crematoriums where
people were actually killed and disposed of, but it may have been
only a matter of time before Vermont fell into the same trap of
Hitler’s regime. America’s timely retreat from eugenics barely
preceded Hitler’s ascent in Germany. The pseudoscience’s
founding fathers of Cold Spring Harbor reluctantly and without
apology stepped down from their positions and the Eugenics Record
Survey office was closed.
One of those notable American
eugenicists, Charles Davenport, continued his work as president of
the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations (IFEO) whose
membership included several well-known German eugenicists. Davenport
wrote many influential articles regarding eugenics and racial hygiene
which were published throughout Germany. He also served on the
editorial boards of two influential German journals as late as 1939
(Kuhl, 1996, pg. 69). It is devastating to think that in the name of
science and medicine, the work of eugenics in the United States by
scientists such as Charles Davenport and Henry Perkins influenced
those who were responsible for the horrors and tragedies of the
Holocaust. According to Black (2003), “[The United States’
participation in] eugenics always risked veering completely out of
control. It did in Nazi Germany” (p. 385). This history is a
regrettable but necessary precursor to the study of the Holocaust.
Chapter 2
Holocaust Survivors
One of Galton’s German
supporters, Alfred Ploetz, used the German equivalent of Galton’s
term eugenics, which translates to racial hygiene, and established
the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905. Now the connection
between eugenics and Hitler’s dream of a superior race begins to be
revealed.
The stage was set for Hitler to
move forward with a campaign to create a master race because after
the losses of World War I there was a need to rebuild the German
population. Hitler inspired others, such as Heinrich Himmler who
headed up the Nazi Police Force, to join together with the Nazi party
to exterminate the entire Jewish population in a movement called The
Final Solution. Following are the actual stories of personal trauma
and tragedy associated with the horrors of the Holocaust between
1938—1945.
Elie Wiesel
(1928 - )
Sighet, Romania
Elie
Wiesel was fifteen-years-old when the horrors of the Holocaust began
for him, his family, and friends. This is brought home to me by
knowing my neighbors, Nathaniel and Jeffrey, who turned fifteen last
fall. Like Wiesel, they studied for several months to prepare for
their Bar Mitzvah, a special Jewish ceremony that every young boy
celebrates around this age. But unlike Wiesel’s childhood, they
are healthy, young teens, enjoying a game of basketball under the
protective care of their parents and their community. They are
looking forward to college plans and whatever good fortune the future
may have in store for them. They have no need to fear persecution
because of their Jewish heritage, as millions did only six decades
ago because of Hitler’s Final Solution. It’s doubtful that
Nathaniel and Jeffrey even have to endure bullying in their rural
high school. Thankfully, some societies have made progress towards
minimizing discrimination between race and religion. It was a much
different situation only sixty years ago for Elie Wiesel.
Elie
was brought up in the small, mostly Jewish community in Romania. As
a teenager, he watched while his grandfather, several uncles, and
cousins were transported by train to death camps in Poland. The
following year, Elie and his entire family also ended up in a death
camp in Auschwitz, Poland. While the most crippling trauma took
place during his time in the death camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald,
the events leading up to the day they were ordered and crowded into
cattle cars were also filled with stress and anxiety. One year
earlier on Sunday, March 19, 1944, Elie remembers the temple services
being interrupted by a vagabond who cried out that the Germans had
crossed the border into Romania. “You sit here praying while the
Angel of Death stands at the city gates!” (Wiesel, 1995, p. 53)
Some took the vagabond seriously and others disregarded his warnings
as someone crying wolf. Elie was more curious than afraid at this
point. Soon he would no longer be only a spectator in this ordeal,
but he and his family would all be actors, as well.
At
home where his family owned and operated a bakery, business went on
as usual, except for the hush while listening to the latest radio
reports. Even though the Germans had crossed over the border, the
community remained mostly optimistic that the war would soon be over.
After all, the Red Army was so near, just over the mountains.
Whether they were in denial or just too scared to cope with the
situation at hand, one can only wonder. The conversations between
Elie and his friends were not the typical conversations of
fifteen-year-old boys thinking about girls, cars, sports, and what
snack they will eat next. No, they spoke of war and how they might
be able to cross borders and escape to Palestine. Elie, being less
optimistic than his friends, viewed this situation as the beginning
of the climactic battle between Gog and Magog, where the Savior would
triumph and He would lead them into the Holy Land. “You and your
mystical hallucinations,” [his] friends said (Wiesel, 1995, p. 55).
Elie wasn’t so far off. Whether they knew it or not, the city of
Sighet’s fate was already sealed. Adolf Eichmann, a young,
high-ranking officer of the Nazi police, had already sent 35 SS men
to deal with the Jews in this small city and to take them to a place
called Birkenau—a death camp in Auschwitz.
Looking
back at the timing for this horrific event, it was only weeks before
the allies stormed the beaches at Normandy in June 1944. It must
have been known all over the world that Hitler’s Third Reich was
doomed. Washington knew it, London did, too, and Stockholm, Bern,
and the Vatican—everyone except the people in Elie’s small city.
I have to wonder, and so does Wiesel, why wasn’t something being
done to stop this madness? But, Hitler was determined to carry out
his promise to rid the earth of every last Jew, homosexual, and
gypsy. Sadly, Wiesel’s father and most of the others refused to
believe the rumors of how the Germans were reportedly persecuting
children, humiliating women, pulling out the beards of elderly men,
and throwing students from trains. Life just went on as usual; they
prayed, but maybe just a little bit quieter. This reminds me of a
story about a frog that was placed in a pot of milk. He was content
and thought he was doing quite well. He didn’t notice when the
heat under the milk was turned up slowly so that when it began to
boil, he was trapped.
The
synagogues were still open and families began to prepare as usual for
the Passover as jeeps, tanks, and motorcycles rolled into Sighet on
that day. Hitler’s plan was being played out to lull the Jews into
a false sense of security. They were polite, bowing to the mistress
of the house they had requisitioned. The maids of the requisitioned
apartments reported to everyone that the soldiers even made their own
beds. They offered candy to the children. Then the milk slowly
began to boil. But Wiesel reveals that “no one warned us that we
would pay dearly for the smiles and hand-kissing of the German
officers, that their courtesy was part of the plan conceived by
Eichmann and his specialists” (Wiesel, 1995, p. 59). Things
changed drastically on the eve of Passover in 1944 when all
synagogues in Sighet were ordered closed. Instead, they met in homes
and recited the customary prayers and celebrated just the same, but
with heavy hearts.
Seven
days following Passover a decree was issued that all stores and
offices belonging to Jews must be closed. No longer would any Jews
be allowed to go outside, except during the late afternoon for a
limited time to purchase food. Then a total curfew followed. They
were ordered to cut out and sew a yellow Star of David on their
clothing which would be visible to everyone. Wiesel was not afraid
of the yellow star, but wore his with great pride, that is, until the
day he saw the posters. “The posters were signed by the German
military governor…whoever opposed the new order would be shot”
(Wiesel, 1995, p. 61).
I
have to ask myself how would I react to such irrational treatment?
Could I remain composed when watching my father and mother, or any
human being for that matter, being treated so inhumanely? Jewish
homes were being invaded and items of any value at all were being
stolen from them. Eichmann ordered Hungarian police to carry out his
orders and his deadly plan. The propaganda of the Third Reich and
the intense discrimination against the race of Jewish people had
infiltrated the minds of the Hungarians and they carried out these
orders with a zeal and brutality that included beating women and
children and trampling old people, including the sick. In Wiesel’s
opinion, these acts committed will remain forever “the dishonor of
the Hungarian army and nation” (Wiesel, 1995, p. 63). The order
for the Jews to be moved into the ghetto almost came as a relief
because now they would be among other Jews and their families. There
was strength in numbers at least. To this day, Wiesel struggles with
the fact that the Jews of Sighet were “sacrificed, abandoned,
betrayed, delivered to the invader…ignored by everyone but the
enemy” (Wiesel, 1995, p. 64) while the rest of the world—even
free Jews—stood by and did nothing at all.
I
am reminded of my own tragedy, insignificant in comparison to Wiesel,
yet traumatic for me, that occurred in 1972. I was leaving a high
school basketball game that had taken place at an “all-black”
school in Rochester, New York. There had been no racial incidents
throughout the game so no one suspected that things might get tense.
Students, parents, teachers, and cheerleaders were all walking down
the hall to begin boarding the buses that would take us home. Out of
nowhere, I was pushed down and punched repeatedly by a small group of
black students probably because I was small and easy prey. I watched
helplessly as people I knew walked by me without even attempting to
rescue me. I will never forget that moment, of course. I can see a
face of one particular parent, but oddly enough, I was never able to
remember who it was and I’m glad for that.
Elie
had to watch as the first convoy of Jews was ordered out of the
ghetto and into the waiting area to eventually board cattle cars that
would transport them to the death camp in Poland. What a feeling of
helplessness must have overcome young Wiesel and others as they
helped prepare and pack provisions for their friends who would soon
be gone forever. As they walked down the streets headed to the
waiting area, all they could do was offer words of encouragement and
exchange empty promises to meet them again soon.
All my teachers, my
classmates—each of them took along a part
of me. I felt ill, I had never
felt so ill. I wanted to shout, to scream like a madman. (Wiesel,
1995, p. 68)
This
was a teenager, not a man. How is one to handle such devastas-tion,
tragedy, and injustice? Wiesel shouted to his friends to hold
on—hold onto what?
In
the days that followed, a peasant woman, Maria, urged Wiesel’s
family to escape and be hidden in the mountains with her, but they
refused. Their reason was that it was important for them to stay
together with their people, though at one point they considered
sending the children or their mother with Maria. I would have
considered a mass escape myself, but who knows what one would do or
how the mind works when under such duress? Elie’s family did
manage to stay together for a short time. They boarded the cattle
car together for the journey to Auschwitz, but the men and women were
separated immediately after their arrival at Auschwitz.
The
experience of the cattle car alone was the end of Wiesel’s
innocence. Hunger, thirst, and having to listen to the howls of a
woman gone mad all contributed to his instant aging. Daily they said
their morning and evening prayers to hold onto any bit of normality,
but Wiesel now began to question whether God was truly traveling with
them. What would it take for my own faith to be shaken? The reality
of this tragic act against humanity has so gripped my heart, so that
now my own faith has become much more important. This really
happened and I know that it certainly could happen again. After all,
our society places great value on intellectual minds, so that
medicine and especially science truly rule the world these days.
People of faith, whether Christian or Jew, are regarded as simpletons
stuck in the past with an archaic way of thinking. I am reminded
that I can never be silent now. When I hear the whistle of a train
in the middle of the night, I envision the faces of the innocent
victims in cattle cars slowly making their way toward a death camp.
I hope the world never forgets this atrocity.
Upon
their arrival in Auschwitz, Elie and his father were immediately
separated from the women. He never saw his mother or his little
sister again—another trauma that haunts him for life. He knows now
the fate of the thousands of children who arrived in these death
camps. They were devoured alive in the flames of a waiting furnace.
The one positive outcome of the death camp that Elie relates is how
he and his father became closer than ever during this time. Daily
life in the work camp found Wiesel clinging to his father and
enjoying the privilege of having his father all to himself. This
only made it more difficult, though, when in January 1945, his father
died of starvation and shame in Buchenwald, a concentration camp they
had been transferred to in Germany only nine days before the Russian
army liberated the camp at Auschwitz.
The day his father died he
tried desperately to stay by his side, but he was driven outside with
clubs. This experience alone is enough to traumatize an individual
for a lifetime, but as we know it is just a small part of what Elie
Wiesel endured during the months of Nazi terror. Buchenwald was
liberated on April 11, 1945, but Wiesel and the others didn’t feel
the victory—they mourned too many deaths to speak of victory. It
was the American soldiers that Wiesel remembers and the horror that
could be read in their faces. Many of them “wept tears of rage and
shame for the human species when [they] saw us” (Wiesel, 1995, p.
97). Elie felt nothing, only grief for the loss of his father and
possibly his entire family.
Wiesel studied in France after
the war as part of a group of Jewish children orphaned by the
Holocaust. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his first memoir, Night,
and became a United States citizen in 1956. He has dedicated his
life to ensuring that the murder of six million Jews would never be
forgotten, and that other human beings would never be subjected to
genocidal homicide.
Michael Wieck
(1928 - )
Konigsberg, Prussia (presently
Kaliningrad, Russia)
Michael
Wieck marks his life as changed on Kristallnacht, called the Night of
Broken Glass on November 9, 1938. He was only nine-years-old when he
began to sense his parents’ worry and the looming danger that would
affect Jews. He was considered an unbaptized Jew or of mixed race
brought up as a Jew, but he had already begun learning the prayers in
preparation for his Bar mitzvah. This is the Jewish ceremony of
consecration that every thirteen-year-old Jewish boy participates in
to be considered eligible to read from the sacred text, the Torah.
His sister, Miriam, was spared death, torture, and rape when her
parents managed to send her to an American boarding school.
Shortly after the beginning of
WW II in September of 1939, many restrictions for Jews were put in
place. Food rations were cut, their ration cards were stamped with a
“J”, food could only be purchased at certain times, and they were
not allowed to participate in air raid drills. Jewish youth that
were fourteen-years-old were drafted to work in chemical factories
and other dangerous jobs. In 1941, the order came to wear the Star
of David and this was a turning point. Now there was no question that
the Final Solution was a reality, Jewish emigration was prohibited,
and it was absolutely clear they intended to totally eliminate the
Jews. (Wieck, 2003, p. 59). Wieck was ordered to wear the Star of
David, which he refers to as the “badge of shame” on his breast.
“My childhood was over once and for all [and the] struggle to
survive began” (Wieck, 2003, p. 68).
The transport of Jews from
Konigsberg had begun when Michael was thirteen-years-old. On one of
the first transports, his Aunt Fanny, who had lived with his family
as a nanny, sat on a curb unable to stand up from the weight of her
luggage after walking quite some distance. When she saw Michael, she
beckoned for his help, but he had already been ordered to carry bags
for his teacher. He was frightened for her, but the sea of bayonets
and guards pushing and ordering the lines to move forward made it
impossible for him to jump out of line to help her. The look in her
eyes is a memory he will never forget. “Very quickly I turned
around once more and once more our eyes met, her look pleading with
me, then—for the last time—her look reproaching me, and I never
saw her again” (Wieck, 2003, p. 20). He was only
thirteen-years-old attempting to manage adult decisions and this is
where his memoir begins. Many of his dear friends and classmates were
crammed into freight cars that day to be eradicated and no reasonable
explanation could be given. The trauma that would haunt him
throughout his entire life had begun. It still puzzles Michael today
as he wonders why these people had to die and why he, of all people,
survived.
In August 1944, two air raids
totally destroyed all of Konigsberg. For a boy at the age of
thirteen, it was difficult to grasp the nature of justice when what
was happening all around him was making absolutely no sense at all.
Men were being hanged for taking food rations to soldiers, two young
people calling for resistance were beheaded, and then began the
transport, arrests, and suicides of Jewish relatives, friends, and
acquaintances (Wieck, 2003, p. 96). The fear of death or even
suddenly dying was no longer a concern for Michael Wieck. During
this time, when he comes to the realization that he couldn’t
determine when or how he would die, he made peace with the fact that
dying is in God’s hands. Therefore, the fear of dying no longer
existed (Wieck, 2003, p. 99).
During the months that
followed, Michael was forced to work at a factory as was his mother.
His father avoided this because he wasn’t Jewish and was an
accomplished violinist. So was Michael’s mother, but her Jewish
status did not permit her to remain with her husband. They dodged
bombs and used their father’s food ration card to purchase a small
amount of food. What kind of strange and intense abandonment must
have been felt by Michael and his mother when their father was
unwilling or unable to defend and protect his family? As the Russian
army advanced, dodging dropping bombs on the way to and from work
became a natural occurrence. There was a prevalent thought
throughout Konisberg that when the Russian Army finally arrived,
there would be relief from the German Nazis. But the opposite was
true. The Russians were worse than the Germans.
For
a time, Michael and his mother found shelter in a cellar while being
bombed by Russians and finally on April 8th,
a quietness descended upon Konigsberg. It appeared that their
liberators had arrived. Little did they know that they had just
survived the second round of Hell and the third round awaited them.
The Russian army mass-murdered Germans and raped women between the
ages of 13-65. Michael remembers that a girl, barely a
sixteen-year-old, was raped eighteen times in one night (Wieck, 2003,
p. 117). His Jewish upbringing and teachings about sexuality was
embedded in an aura of it being something extremely special. Michael
recounts his confusion, “how is it possible…that an act of love
can also be an act of hate?” (Wieck, 2003, p. 131).
Wieck’s
physical health deteriorated and the feeling of weakness, physically
and emotionally, increased. He had never heard anyone in agony
crying out for help and it haunted him continuously. Under the
Russian occupation he became a thief and robber, much to the dismay
of his father. His thievery was the one thing that kept his mother
and father alive. They managed to avoid being killed by Russian
soldiers, but sanitation and water became a major issue. Wieck and
his family would go days without eating or drinking anything.
“Thirst made itself painfully felt” recalls Wieck, just as their
small group was marched off to a neighboring town. On the way, they
passed dozens of dead bodies, men, women, and young girls frozen by
the side of the road. Sadly his thoughts seemed to be that “at
least they were relieved from this suffering” (Wieck, 2003, p.
141).
Michael
and several others were chosen to return to Konisberg for work detail
which meant burying the dead left in the streets and buildings.
These were people that he may have known at one time, or gone to
school with, or met at the grocery story. The cemetery was a large
open pit where bodies were laid side by side. A powder of some sort
was laid upon the corpses and then a layer of dirt covered them.
Another layer of bodies was placed over those already buried and the
procedure was repeated yet again. The memories that haunt Michael
are still vivid today. The young women, their innocent lips dripping
with blood, were dragged by the ankles or by nooses over rocks and
stumps to be laid in the graves.
All
the hardships and misery that reduced the population
[of Konisberg] by more than 80
percent are beyond the
power of words to describe.
(Wieck, 2003, p. 161)
Wieck’s
memoir of what happened in the small town of Konisberg is not a
well-known story. These people were not forced to travel distances
to concentration camps. Instead, they were terrorized at home and
left to survive without any provisions whatsoever. They learned to
eat dandelions and nettles, but had no knowledge or resources as to
what else might be edible in such dire circumstances. “Had I the
authority to write the school curriculum, I would have every child
learn which plants and fungi are edible,” writes Wieck (Wieck,
2003, p. 166). He goes on to explain that offering simple courses in
the science of nutrition, survival techniques and first aid could
prove vital in desperate times. (With all the talk in our own
country about disaster planning, I wonder if information such as this
is being taught to our children and is it even necessary for today’s
circumstances?)
Michael
Wieck survived the Nazis as a Jew and he survived the Russians as a
German. “But that I was allowed to survive both is
incomprehensible to me” (Wieck, 2003, p. 188). At the age of
nineteen, Wieck finally obtained an exit visa and was reunited with
his sister, Miriam, in Berlin. He struggled for years dealing with
people due to a shyness that prevailed. His sister helped to
cultivate him back into society.
But
as had so often happened in my life, the right thing
happened
for me at the right moment. A school friend
named
Hildegard came to visit. I fell in love and found in
Hildegard
a sympathetic person who gently began to take
me,
a somewhat eccentric stranger, in hand and slowly,
with
clever psychology, she turned me little by little into
a “useful person.” We were
married in 1950. (Wieck, 2003, p. 222)
This
sounds like a beautiful ending to a horrible tragedy, but Wieck makes
incredibly clear the importance of making these tragedies known
throughout the world so that they cannot be forgotten. When he hears
comments that pose the possibility that the Jews are responsible for
their own demise, he is horrified and unable to speak. His memoir is
extremely graphic which makes it hard to accept. He was forced to
put down into words the inhumane experiences that he endured and for
some reason survived so that we would know the truth. Of course,
nobody wants to be blamed for such atrocities and the emphasis is not
even being placed on blame. The reason for these memoirs is that we
will not forget what human beings are capable of.
I
came to learn that the capacity of the self-righteous
and
the conceited to blind themselves to the truth knows
no
limit. (Wieck, 2003, p. 224).
Miriam Katin
(1928 - )
Budapest, Hungary
Miriam Katin was just a toddler
when this story begins in Budapest, Hungary. Her father was serving
in the Hungarian Army so her mother was left to care for Miriam on
her own in very uncertain times. The first serious change in their
lives occurred when all Jews were ordered to hand over their pets.
Esther, Miriam’s mother, explained to her daughter that her beloved
dog, Rex, has died rather than trying to explain such an irrational
situation to an innocent four-year-old.
Miriam’s
family was not poor, but appears to have lived quite above middle
class standards in the beautiful and sophisticated city of Budapest
in 1944. The impending doom that would affect every Jewish person in
this city began with trivial orders, but soon developed into more
serious situations. Miriam’s mother, by order of Hitler’s Third
Reich, was directed by her landlord to move all of her household
belongings out of the apartment. She was allowed to take only a
suitcase with minimal personal items when they were forced to move
into the ghetto area of Budapest.
Before
that could happen, Esther made a decision that most likely saved her
and her daughter’s life, but at what cost. She contracted with a
black marketer for a new identity and left the city as a servant girl
with an illegitimate child. Before she left, however, she made sure
to leave adequate information and proof of a faked suicide with her
housekeeper whom she swore to secrecy. What would I be feeling if
tomorrow I was ordered to destroy all my personal belongings
including pictures, letters, and books? How would I cope with losing
my own identity and forced to play the part of someone else? I
suppose in order to save my own life and my child’s life I would
also do what Esther did. Most of the stories of Holocaust survivors
talk about the choices they made when faced with staying with family
and friends or escaping with the help of a non-Jewish friend. Most
chose to stay with family and sadly their choice meant eventual
death. Miriam’s mother’s choice to escape was probably because
her parents had previously passed away so she was already on her own.
Throughout
the pending escape and weeks of hiding, it was obvious that Miriam’s
mother had raised her with a religious knowledge of God as their
Creator and Provider, but as time passed their faith dwindled because
of the dire circumstances they faced on a daily basis. Having
escaped the city without being noticed as Jews, they boarded a train
and headed into wine country for refuge. Esther and Miriam were
hesitantly welcomed into the home of an older couple who owned a
winery where they both worked for their room and board. But soon
their peace would be disrupted when a German Commandante discovers
Esther and finds her beauty too much to resist. Realizing that she
is in hiding, he visits her regularly bringing chocolates to her
daughter to keep her occupied while raping her mother repeatedly.
Esther has no recourse but to submit rather than being found out.
War
eventually erupted in the midst of this peaceful wine country between
the Germans and the Russians. All the women and children that remain
huddle into the wine cellars for safety only to be found by Russians
who proceed to drink and gang rape anyone in sight. Esther and her
daughter narrowly escape one morning into the woods in the middle of
a wintery storm. A kind, old farmer picks them up and hides them in
his wagon and takes them to his home where the reception from his
wife is less than cordial. Esther barters her gold wedding ring for
food and shelter and is allowed to stay. The war continues on more
brutal as the days progress and Esther finds herself sewing bloody
military garments taken from the bodies of dead soldiers to earn her
keep.
Little
Miriam was aware of all the horrors of war, hiding, rapes and
murders, cold and hunger, and survival. As a young child, her coping
mechanisms to deal with such atrocities were much different than for
an adult. She occupied herself with whatever toy she imagined, or a
doll or small dog to keep herself busy. When a child is faced with
such turmoil and confusion it is sometimes safer to hide by finding
some kind of distraction. It’s also likely that Miriam sensed her
mother’s fears and problems and was determined not to be one more
bother for her mother to have to deal with.
It
becomes evident to Esther that she has become pregnant and not
knowing whether this child was fathered by the German officer or one
of the Russian soldiers, she flees once again determined to find
someone who can end the pregnancy that she cannot bear to carry.
Just when she feels that life isn’t worth living and she has come
to a point in her life where she is ready to give up—God shows up.
Esther doesn’t actually see it that way, but one would hope that
eventually her daughter, Miriam, would come to this conclusion. They
are met by a kind and gentle man at the train station who provides
them with a ticket to a city of refuge where they can find food and
shelter and a service for finding lost relatives. Their horror story
ends when her husband who has returned from the war, traces her
escape route and miraculously finds both his wife and his daughter
safe and sound in France where they have been living and waiting to
hear from him.
Only
when they are again reunited as a family is Esther able to speak her
heart to her husband about some of the horrors they endured. “It
was so hard and hopeless,” recounts Esther, but “thank God we are
alive and together again” (Katin, 2006, p. 117). Karoly, her
husband, has lost all faith in God and makes it very clear that God
has abandoned them and the only way any of them were saved is because
they did it on their own. “We are on our own, Esther. That’s all
there is to it” (Katin, 2006, p. 118).
Summation
These
are only three personal accounts of young people who survived the
horrors of the Holocaust nearly seventy years ago. Many of the
survivors have passed away by now, so it is a privilege to be able to
hear from those who are still alive to share their testimonies.
While Wiesel, Wieck, and Katin all shared the same religion and
culture growing up, they were all individuals with personal strengths
and weaknesses that became a part of how they faced the trauma of
being held captive, of pointless persecution and dehumanizing
treatment to survive the unending months of turmoil.
All
of these survivors still wonder how and why they survived the
Holocaust, while so many others did not. This is a question that
haunts most survivors of a traumatic event such as war, natural
catastrophes, or auto accidents. These survivors are also candidates
for a condition we are now familiar with since the Vietnam War, and
more recently the war in Iraq, called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Chapter 3
Surviving Trauma
The
promise of healing is not that all your scars will be erased or that
you will never hurt again. Rather, its promise is that the energy you
now spend suppressing the past, running from it, or hiding it from
yourself and others, can be yours to invest in the present—in your
goals, relation-ships, spiritual growth, and creativity. (Matsakis,
1996, pg. 9)
The
pathological understanding of trauma according to Webster’s
definition is “an emotional shock that creates substantial and
lasting damage to the psychological development of the individual,
generally leading to neurosis.” Furthermore, trauma also includes
anything that severely disturbs the mind or emotions. Many
psychologists today favor using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT),
primarily developed through a merging of behavior therapy and
cognitive therapy, to treat trauma victims. Such an approach
influences dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thinking through
goal-oriented, systematic counseling and therapy. Psychologists have
been successful in helping patients cope at a higher level of
functionality, but whether or not one can be healed from trauma has
yet to be determined. On the other hand, certain individuals who
survived the trauma of the Holocaust appear to have achieved further
healing by sharing their stories through memoirs, forgiving their
perpetrators, and helping others escape the pain and suffering of
survivor trauma.
Certain traumas, such as war
and sexual crimes, are considered the most severe forms of trauma,
but any kind of trauma can have minor to severe effects on a person
depending on his or her genetic and emotional structure. Traumatic
events of this nature also include being kidnapped, being taken
hostage, terrorist attacks, natural or manmade disasters, severe
automobile accidents, or being diagnosed with a life-threatening
illness. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is the DSM-IV term
used to identify someone who is suffering from a severe traumatic
event. The concept of “post-traumatic stress suggests that
symptoms may manifest themselves years after the stressful event”
(Marcus & Rosenberg, 1989, p.15). Depending on the severity of
the trauma, individuals may struggle with acceptance of the diagnosis
and treatment even after symptoms have been confirmed according to
DSM-IV guidelines. It’s important to understand that healing from
trauma and PTSD takes time and is often a lifelong process.
The authors of The
Unbroken Soul: Tragedy, Trauma, and Human Resilience assert
that psychological trauma manifests in five commonly seen pathways.
Withdrawal from specific
situations or from life in general
Masochistic brooding and
‘injustice collecting”
Chronic anger and revenge
seeking
Flashbacks, nightmares,
startle reactions
Making narcissistic capital
out of misfortune and regarding oneself as an exception to ordinary
rules and regulations of society. (Parens, 2008, p. 3)
It’s
worth venturing a little deeper into some of these symptoms to
understand how people are affected by PTSD. It’s a common trait
for trauma victims to withdraw from situations that remind them of
the event that caused the trauma. This aids the mind in using denial
to block out the fact that the event actually occurred. According to
the APA DSM-IV (2000), “The person commonly makes deliberate
efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations about the
traumatic event and avoids activities, situations, or people who
arouse recollections of it” (p. 468). I believe that denial is
built into our beings because some trauma is so severe that it could
destroy a person if she came face to face with facts before she was
emotionally and physically ready to begin confronting the issue.
According to Matsaki’s (1999) handbook for trauma survivors, “some
Nazi concentration camp survivors have fared much better by keeping
their memories in repression and denial than others have by
remembering the horrors” (p. 145). This symptom is referred to as
psychic or emotional numbing. It is similar to the phenomenon that
occurs when an individual is physically wounded, but then is able to
walk miles to safety. When someone has been wounded emotionally, the
mind can numb itself against unbearable emotional pain by putting
aside any emotions he or she might feel. In the instance of the
Holocaust, victims who showed their emotions in the midst of the
trauma placed themselves in a life threatening situation.
In
my limited experience with counseling posttraumatic stress as a
peer-counselor, I have often wondered why one patient has the
capacity and emotional strength to successfully complete therapy with
a visible change in behavior and thought processes while another
individual seems to remain trapped in his or her dysfunctional state.
The fact that 60% of the world’s population (50% in the U.S.) has
suffered a traumatizing event gives cause to understand why and what
is the secret to helping trauma victims find help and hope (Parens,
2008). The study of resiliency re-surfaced mainly because of the
large number of Holocaust victims and also due to empirical studies
of children raised by grossly disturbed parents. One of the main
factors in resiliency is being able to make sense out of chaos, which
is not an easy task. I would agree with Parens, that it is in loving
a person unconditionally that underlies the phenomenon of resiliency.
Obviously, there is much more we need to understand about resiliency
before making any scientific claims.
Another symptom common to
trauma victims involves re-experiencing the trauma by means of
memories, dreams, nightmares, and/or flashbacks. An individual may
feel uncomfortable in situations that remind him/her of the original
trauma. Sonia in The
First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich
would actually hide in her own house years after the Holocaust. She
would spy throughout the neighborhood convinced that someone was
after her. I recently met a woman in her forties whose mother was a
Holocaust survivor. She related incidents during her childhood when
her mother would lock both her and her brother up in a closet under
the basement stairs while she went out on a mission to find
provisions for them. These children experienced abnormal and cruel
treatment due to their mother’s untreated trauma but eventually
sought and received therapy to help them cope with what has been
termed second generation trauma.
A third symptom is often
referred to as the “fight or flight” reaction and involves
physiological changes to occur in the body. An individual may have
outbursts or rage, agitation, and irritability, along with insomnia.
Having grown up in a family with a father who was a veteran of World
War II and in my personal opinion suffered from untreated PTSD, I
often experienced his rage and abuse targeted at my mother. My
reaction was to run and hide or in other words, I took flight. On
another occasion, I remember fleeing a situation at a high school
basketball game when two spectators began fighting in the bleachers.
It triggered a traumatic memory of being personally assaulted at a
basketball game a year earlier. My reaction was beyond my control as
I screamed, ran out of the gym, and cowered in a corner of the
hallway. I have never received a professional diagnosis or treatment
for trauma, but through self-diagnosis and understanding these
symptoms I have been able to realize the basis of some of my fears,
my need to control situations, the value of forgiveness, and the
importance of helping others resolve issues related to posttraumatic
stress disorder.
In order for posttraumatic
stress to be successfully treated, all of these major symptoms must
be taken seriously. Professional interest in the area of
traumatology had been relatively sparse compared to research and
study of other problems (Matsakis, 1996, p. 9) until the recent
return of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic
stress disorder diagnosis. The Veterans Administration Hospital in
Vermont uses the Cognitive
Processing Therapy: Veteran/Military Version
developed by Patricia A. Resick, Ph.D. and Candice M. Monson, Ph.D.
of the National Center for PTSD to help treat veterans returning to
their families and jobs from the horrors of war. There are several
versions of therapy to help one recover from survivor trauma and
inevitably successful treatment will involve caring friends, other
survivors, and qualified professionals. A handbook for trauma
survivors entitled I
Can’t Get Over It
(Matsakis, 1996, p. 144) stresses the importance of establishing and
maintaining contact with a social support system throughout
treatment.
In the case of most trauma
survivors, the issue of grief also needs to be dealt with because
usually the traumatic event includes personal loss or in extreme
cases the loss of life. Especially in the case of Holocaust victims
many families witnessed their children, siblings, mother, and father
being beaten, humiliated, and often dying. The grief they
experienced had to be set aside in order to survive the ensuing weeks
and months of torture. Elie Wiesel (1995) describes watching his
father die from starvation and the emptiness he experienced afterward
due to the extreme circumstances in which they all suffered (p. 94).
It was years later on December 10, 1986, at the Nobel Peace Prize
ceremony when his emotions finally began to break through. Egil
Aarvik, president of the Nobel Prize Committee began:
“You
were with your father when he passed away; it was
the
darkest hour of your life. And this is the most glorious.
It is therefore fitting that
your own son be with you as you receive the highest distinction
humanity can bestow upon one of its own.” I was shaken by the
linking of my father and my son. I saw them standing together. My
lips moved, but no sound came out. Tears filled my eyes, the tears I
couldn’t shed so long ago. (p. 95)
Some
forty years later, the healing process for Weisel continued as is the
case for trauma victims.
The healing process for grief
is similar to healing from trauma. The five stages of grief are
denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
One of the differences is that the stages of grief often progress in
the order described previously. The stages of healing from trauma
often overlap and recur as the healing process begins.
Most
therapy for survivor trauma begins with the patient recalling the
incident. This may involve using photographs to remind him of the
surroundings when the trauma occurred. During this time, he may
remember things that happened but had been stored safely in the place
to make functioning in everyday life possible. It may bring up
memories of people that were involved in the situation, triggering
emotions that have been hidden for years. Sharing your story with
someone you trust helps you to feel more comfortable talking about
the trauma that occurred. Healing begins when you are able to cope
with the emotions, symptoms, and memories surrounding the trauma.
During
therapy you begin to identify what triggers symptoms, such as anger,
guilt, fear, and rage. Triggers can be anniversary dates, sights,
smells, actions, and people that remind you of the incident that
happened to cause the trauma. As you become more aware of your
thoughts and feelings, you can learn how to change your reactions to
these emotions. Treatment for most survivor victims is a long and
sometimes continuous journey. But with patience and a trusted
therapist they will see an improvement in their quality of life
through their daily relationships at work and at home.
Self-confidence will be improved as the process continues to a point
where the survivor is sometimes able to turn around and help others
begin to heal from their trauma.
A natural tendency for
survivors who have witnessed trauma as atrocious as the Holocaust is
to write about their experience in the form of a memoir. Memoirs
written by Viktor Frankl, Michael Wieck, and Elie Wiesel, to name
just a few, provide a depth of insight into the experiences which so
many thousands of Jews survived during this time. These writings
have served to educate the world to the horrors committed against
humankind and at the same time have provided hope and healing for the
authors themselves and for those who read them.
In the world today, we hear of
trauma and tragedy on a weekly basis. Whether it may be a plane
crash, a tsunami, hurricane disaster, or genocide, there is trauma
associated with the event and there will be victims left to
cope—usually without someone by their side. Those with the
resiliency to continue through life will be vital to those remaining
without hope. Those with the experience and knowledge of the
treatment necessary to help heal the wounds of trauma will be vital
to victims of natural and man-made disasters throughout time.
Chapter 4
Spiritual Considerations
“We are not human beings
having a spiritual experience,
but spiritual beings having a
human experience.”
Teilhard de Chardin
(1881-1955)
This is the perspective from
which I have personally come to view life. Francis Galton, Charles
Davenport, Adolf Hitler, and Peter Singer are examples of the many
people who chose to ignore this French Jesuit and philosopher,
Teilhard de Chardin’s, knowledge and understanding of life.
Throughout this study I have pondered the spiritual aspects of
eugenics, the Holocaust (victims, perpetrators, bystanders), and
those who survived these traumatic events. So, I have chosen to
include a personal glimpse into these thoughts which are extremely
important in our understanding of humanity in its entirety.
Eugenics
The great majority of people
would agree that there exist two worlds that affect our everyday
being. There is a physical world that we can see, touch, smell, hear
and experience in amazing ways. There is also a spiritual world that
is not so easy to experience or understand. Since the Age of
Enlightenment and Darwin’s theory of evolution, some people became
disillusioned, confused, or enlightened about their spirituality and
many discarded any form of Judeo-Christian beliefs. Francis Galton
and Henry Perkins are two of those people who questioned the beliefs
they had been brought up with while venturing into the world of
science including eugenics. Their experiments and theories were
adapted by other scientists, medical experts, and politicians and
soon evolved into what we know as the Holocaust—the annihilation of
millions of human beings because their lives were not worthy of life.
That is the question. Who determines whose life is worthy to be
lived? Man or God? Today popular spiritual belief allows us to put
ourselves in the place of God through self-realization or whatever
kind of medium used so that you now have the power to make decisions
over life and death.
Eugenics, although an
unpopular term today, remains a part of human genetics and needs to
be applied with great caution unless we want to see results similar
to those that occurred during World War II. A recipe for disaster,
based on what took place during the first half of the 20th
century, is science mixed with economics, sprinkled with politics,
and tossed with God (an optional ingredient). Ben Stein’s recent
movie, Expelled,
disturbingly reveals
how universities and scientists have removed any knowledge of God or
some form of a higher power from their laboratories and lecture
halls. It’s becoming clear that American Bioethics continues to
move toward a utilitarian philosophy without regard for what is
morally right or wrong.
I shuddered as I viewed A
Dangerous Mind
(2004) and listened to Peter Singer, a renowned professor at Yale
University, speak about the life of an unborn child and even a
newborn child under the age of six months not being considered worthy
to live. His words were so very close to those of the German
scientists of the Third Reich who were determining only sixty years
ago who was worthy to live. Today, scientists have given us the
added benefit of genetically determined babies, or “designer
babies” as we often hear them called. Though the term eugenics is
not used today, the practice is still very much alive.
Hitler believed in God and
called himself a Christian, as many people call themselves Christians
today. But the term Christian can be a cultural term, just as the
term Jew can also be a cultural term. The forces of life and death,
light and darkness, good and evil, right and wrong are constantly at
work around us. In my own personal experience, I have come to know
that I was created by a loving, compassionate, forgiving God who
desires that I would come to know Him through a personal relationship
with His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. It’s through this
relationship that I view every decision I make. Without this
personal knowledge of the love of God (whether as a Muslim, Jew, or
Christian) it is easier for someone to make choices that end in
death.
The science of genetics is
invaluable to our society today to aid in the discovery of disease
and cures for those diseases. Genetics placed in the hands of
scientists and medical professionals who consider themselves more
intelligent than the One who created them will sadly miss the point
of saving lives.
The Holocaust
The Jews are God’s chosen
people. How ironic that they would suffer through the most tragic,
inhumane event of human history. If God exists then why did He allow
such a travesty? My answer to this question is that God created us
all with a free will. He created us with a mind to make decisions
for ourselves. Sometimes, we become so smart and so powerful that we
don’t need God or we make God what we want Him to be. In the
Torah, God sets before His people the choice of blessings and curses,
life and death and says, “Now choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Hitler, his scientists, medical professionals, and SS guards missed
that chapter obviously. Their choices were made and God’s people
suffered.
The Jewish people who survived
the concentration camps and death camps were sustained by their faith
in God. It was either their belief in God or their culture of
religious duty that allowed them to trust God and worship Him in the
midst of captivity and unimaginable torture. Today many Jewish
people have abandoned their faith and are merely cultural Jews in
much the same way many Christians are merely cultural Christians. By
this I mean that the customs, feasts, and celebrations are observed
but the heart of who God is and how God fits into the lives of people
remains a mystery for the majority.
Healing & Hope
Therapy
and psychology are critical in helping people heal from the wounds
and trauma of war crimes and sexual abuse. Thankfully, many centers
for Holocaust survivors have sprung up all over the world to provide
healing and hope for those who suffered through the Holocaust.
Veterans’ Hospitals all over the country are providing valuable
counseling and therapy for our soldiers who may have survived the war
in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now suffer with PTSD. Victims of rape
and abuse are able to find support and healing through organizations
with counselors and advocates who are equipped to handle rape related
posttraumatic stress syndrome. We are inundated with self-help books
available to help victims cope and begin to heal from whatever kind
of trauma they have suffered.
The
greatest gift of healing doesn’t come from a book, or a therapist,
or a drug. It comes directly from a loving, healing God who most
definitely uses all of those ingredients to provide healing. When
there is a deep understanding and knowledge of the fact that (1) God
exists, (2) that He loves you, and (3) that He wants to see you made
whole then there will be complete healing.
Sadly,
for the strong and powerful people in our world, God may remain a
mystery. One can only imagine what power would be available for them
today if God were included in their equation, especially in the area
of science, medicine, and technology. I believe as scientists come
closer to discovering the mysteries of life, they will have to look
at the possibility of a God who has always been there waiting to be
discovered!
“But seek ye first
the kingdom of God…and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Matthew 6:33 (emphasis
added)
References
American
Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic
and statistical
manual of
mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR.
Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Black,
E. (2003). War
against the weak: Eugenics and America’s
war to create a master race.
New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.
Brookes,
M. (2004). Extreme
measures: The dark visions and bright
ideas of Francis Galton.
New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory (2002). DNA
from the beginning: Classical
genetics (chap 14, Bio).
Retrieved Feb. 18,
2009, from http://www.dnaftb.org/14/concept/index.html.
Frankl,
V. E. (1984). Man’s
search for meaning. Boston:
Beacon Press.
Gallagher,
N. (1999). Breeding
better Vermonters: The eugenics project in
the Green Mountain State.
Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
Katin,
M. (2006). We are on
our own: A memoir. Montreal:
Drawn &
Quarterly.
Kühl,
S. (1994). The
Nazi connection: Eugenics, American racism, and
German
national socialism.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Marcus,
P. & Rosenberg, A. (1989). Healing
their wounds: Psychotherapy
with
Holocaust survivors and their families.
New York: Praeger.
Matsakis,
A. (1992). I
can't get over it: A handbook for trauma survivors.
Oakland, Calif: New Harbinger
Publications.
Parens,
H., Blum, H.P., & Akhtar, S. (2008). The
unbroken soul: Tragedy,
trauma, and human
resilience. Margaret
S. Mahler Series. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson.
Peter
Singer: A dangerous mind. Author
Bryant, M. and Roach, D.
Films for the Humanities and
Science, 2004.
Reich,
H. (2006). The first
and final nightmare of Sonia Reich: A son’s
memoir. New
York: Public Affairs/PBG.
Resick,
P.A., Monson, C.M. (2006). Cognitive
Processing Therapy:
Veteran/Military Version. VA
Boston Healthcare System:Boston,MA
Wiesel,
E. (1995). All rivers
run to the sea: Memoirs. New
York: Alfred
Knopf, Inc.
Wieck,
M. (2003). A
childhood under Hitler and Stalin: Memoirs of a
“certified” Jew.
Madison, WI: The
University of Wisconsin Press.
Annotated Bibliography
Bachner,
J. (2007). My darkest
years: Memoirs of a survivor of Auschwitz,
Warsaw and Dachau.
Jefferson, NC:
McFarland & Co., Inc. Publishers.
James Bachner grew up in
Berlin, Germany as a happy young boy with his Jewish family of above
average wealth. Bachner and his family and Jewish friends quickly
faced discrimination, persecu-tion, and eventually imprisonment as
the Nazis took over their country. His memoir describing his
survival of Auschwitz, Warsaw, and Dachau prison camps puts a face
and a personality to the atrocities that all Jewish people faced
under Hitler’s regime. The uncomfortable reality that other
countries, including the United States, knew what was taking place,
but chose to remain powerless haunts the reader and reminds us all
that the Holocaust must remain a part of history in all fields of
education.
Bachrach,
S. D. & Kuntz, D. (2004). Deadly
medicine: Creating the master
race. Washington,
D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
This book is based on an
exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and makes
truthful what many have referred to as myths. Several noted scholars
share medical and scientific historical facts about how experts and
trusted professionals became the driving force behind the persecution
and death of millions of human beings. The extensive content includes
the connection between the science of eugenics, Germany’s social
program of racial hygiene, and the resulting use of euthanasia. This
subject was not written about until long after most of the
perpetrators were dead. It is left to the reader to decide if the
same practices today regarding euthanasia and selective breeding of
humans (designer babies and abortion) are relevant to what took place
only forty-five years ago.
Black,
E. (2003). War
against the weak: Eugenics and America’s war to
create a master race. New
York: Four Walls Eight Windows.
Edwin Black, who has won many
awards as an investigative author, pulls together facts from the
Nazis’ eugenic program and their connection to earlier eugenics
programs in the United States. He uncovers the shocking truths about
American corporations that supported these eugenics programs. War
Against the Weak
creates an unsettled feeling about our country’s involvement with
eugenics that led to the atrocities in the death camps of World War
II and a need to know more about the history leading up to the
Holocaust. This is a very revealing book and sheds a much needed
light on the connection between the pseudoscience of eugenics and the
Holocaust.
Brookes,
M. (2004). Extreme
measures: The dark visions and bright ideas
of Francis Galton. New
York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Brookes takes an extensive look
at one of history’s forgotten scientists, Francis Galton, who was
clearly influenced by the Victorian Age. His work with mapping,
fingerprinting, and statistics was overshadowed by his work regarding
eugenics and natural selection as influenced by his cousin, Charles
Darwin. Francis Galton sadly is credited with moving eugenics
forward more because of his social status rather than any scientific
knowledge he acquired. Galton is a perfect example of how science
can go awry when mixed with politics and economics.
Frankl,
V. (1984). Man’s
search for meaning. Boston:
Beacon Press
This is possibly one of the
best books to read for anyone who is looking for the answers to life.
Frankl, a psychotherapist who survived the death camps of the
Holocaust, shares his life story and secrets to surviving life. Not
only does the reader gain insight into what life in the concentration
camps was actually like, but we also gain an understanding of how to
cope with suffering. Frankl explains that we cannot always control
our circumstances, but we can choose to control our attitude which
can make all the difference.
Gallagher,
N. (1999). Breeding
better Vermonters: The eugenics project in
the Green Mountain State.
Hanover, NH:
University Press of New England.
The eugenics program in Vermont
was a well-kept secret until Gallagher shared this informative past
about the dark side of a highly regarded social system in the early
1900’s. She uncovers truths about so-called voluntary
sterilization of those deemed unfit according to Vermont Children’s
Aid Society and other social workers that makes one question our
genetic knowledge regarding women’s choice or designer babies.
This book explains the connection between the eugenics program of
Vermont’s Henry Perkins of the University of Vermont, scientist
Charles Davenport at Cold Springs Harbor, NY and German scientists
who influenced Hitler’s conception of a master human race.
Hassan,
J. (2003). A house
next door to trauma: Learning from Holocaust
survivors how to respond to
atrocity. London:
Jessica Kingsley
Judith Hassan has written
numerous articles on war trauma. She was most recently awarded the
National Care Awards Lifetime Achievement in Care Award in 2007. Her
work for 38 years with Holocaust survivors and refugees at the London
based Jewish Care Center allows her practical experience to speak for
itself. She covers the issues of loss, grief, and mourning, in
addition to the political and social context of the trauma. I would
urge anyone who is interested in working with trauma victims to read
Hassan’s comprehensive work.
Hoffman,
E. (2004). After such
knowledge. New York:
Public Affairs/PBG
Hoffman has won several
literary awards and has lectured inter-nationally. She writes from
the perspective of a second-generation Holocaust survivor giving
credence to the long-term effects of this horrific tragedy.
Concerning the practices of sadism and humiliation associated with
the Holocaust she writes, “The possibility of such behavior leaves
a contaminating stain on all our perceptions, on our very idea of
human nature” (p. 43) and this is what keeps me asking how and why
an event such as the Holocaust could ever happen. She refers to the
Holocaust as a task, which I take to mean there is something we need
to do in response. This book will stretch you to think beyond what
happened in the past to what can we do today to prevent future
atrocities from happening in our world.
Matsakis,
A. (1992). I can’t
get over it: A handbook for trauma survivors.
Oakland, CA: New Harbinger
Publications.
Dr. Matsakis is an
internationally known trauma psychologist and has written twelve
books relating to the subject of trauma for rape survivors to war
survivors. This is a very practical self-help book that can be used
by an individual or by a therapist with his or her client to work
through the steps of recovery. Matsakis also provides the necessary
educational part of trauma therapy for readers to understand some of
the complexities such as “secondary victimization” by friends and
family and the fact that symptoms often occur months after the event.
This is a book that will provide a guide to someone struggling with
posttraumatic stress or for someone who is helping others through the
healing process of PTSD.
Reich,
H. (2006). The first
and final nightmare of Sonia Reich: A son’s
memoir. New
York: Public Affairs/PBG.
Howard Reich has done much to
help other second and third generations of Holocaust survivors
understand the long-term effects of posttraumatic stress disorder.
His perspective as a child of two Holocaust survivors makes for a
powerful memoir. His mother, Sonia, suffers from late-onset PTSD
after the death of her husband late in life, leading Reich to delve
deeper into his heritage by traveling to Dubno, Poland. There he
discovers the horrors of what his parents and other Jews lived
through. This is an important piece of history and should be read by
anyone who wants to understand the long-term, personal effects World
War II had on Jews.
Study Bibliography
Aberbach,
D. (1989). Surviving
trauma: Loss, literature and
psychoanalysis. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press.
American
Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic
and statistical
manual of
mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR.
Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Bachner,
J. (2007). My darkest
years: Memoirs of a survivor of Auschwitz,
Warsaw and Dachau.
Jefferson, NC:
McFarland & Co., Inc. Publishers.
Bachrach,
S. D. & Kuntz, D. (2004). Deadly
medicine: Creating the
master race. Washington,
D.C.: Sara J. Bloomfield
Black,
E. (2003). War
against the weak: Eugenics and America’s
war to create a master race.
New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.
Brookes,
M. (2004). Extreme
measures: The dark visions and bright
ideas of Francis Galton.
New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory (2002). DNA
from the beginning: Classical
genetics (chap 14, Bio).
Retrieved Feb. 18,
2009, from http://www.dnaftb.org/14/concept/index.html.
DeSalvo,
L. A. (1999). Writing
as a way of healing: How telling our stories
transforms
our lives.
San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Frankl,
V. E. (1984). Man’s
search for meaning. Boston:
Beacon Press.
Gallagher,
N. (1999). Breeding
better Vermonters: The eugenics project in
the Green Mountain State.
Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
Hassan,
J. (2003). A house
next door to trauma: Learning from Holocaust
survivors how to respond to
atrocity. London:
Jessica Kingsley.
Hoffman,
E. (2004). After such
knowledge. New York:
Public Affairs/PBG.
Katin,
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