i'm a grandchild of holocaust survivors (hope it's okay that i'm here), and i'm curious about people's experiences with old holocaust survivors. basically... my grandparents (2 still living, two recently deceased) are/were odd in many ways. e.g. my dad's parents were always frugal to the point of absurdity, and were always terrified of flying. when i talk to people about these sorts of things, opinions are divided: some people think that these sorts of things are the result of the trauma experienced by holocaust survivors, while others think it's just ordinary old-people craziness.
i've always kind of assumed that a lot of it is just old-people craziness, and yet... i read maus recently and the narrator is driven crazy by his father's neuroses, in particular his obsessive frugality - very reminiscent of my dad's late dad. i wonder if anybody's ever studied the psychological effects associated with the trauma of concentration camps.
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Cleveland
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Sun, March 7, 2004 - 6:12 PMmy grandmother would always save the tiniest piece of food. Like, if there were 3 bites left of something, she would wrap it up and put it in the fridge, she couldn't throw away a morsel. She also, though I don't know if this is a result of the camps, would close bottles of soda water by wrapping saran wrap over the tops and securing it with a rubber band, so it wouldn't go flat. this odd quirk didn't necessarily seem camp-related, just as if she were forced to drink flat soda in her youth...
there are lots of psychological effects that i've heard. i've heard of stories of parent survivors who always kept packed suitcases under the bed, in case they suddenly had to "flee." i've heard of all kinds of craziness like that, and while i can't point you to a study, i'm sure someone's done one. -
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Wed, March 10, 2004 - 3:25 AMNot only Jews had this kind of syndrome as a result of the war. I know my ex mother in law always saved her plate of food for the next day in the refrig if she didn't eat it all. It turned out that during the war in Norway they were starving to the point where the towns folk were making bread out of sawdust, just to fill their bellies. She was a child at the time so it was a vivid memory for her. War is hell.
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Unsu...
Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Wed, March 10, 2004 - 3:44 PMmy dad was a survivor, and yes...frugality! he taught me when i was very young to always make "packages" always hide some food. i used to get upset because he would eat crumbs off the counter or floor, it used to make me feel really "icky". the out of control anger is something else other children of survivors have told me they experienced from their parents. i mean, crazy, psycho anger. and generally out of control emotions. he would cry uncontrollably at sad movies. -
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Wed, March 10, 2004 - 5:22 PMhmmm. no psycho anger at all in my family, and there are lots of survivors. eccentricities galore, but no psycho anger. -
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Unsu...
Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Fri, March 12, 2004 - 11:52 AMmy dad had an amazing story - he escaped from a lot of intense situations - including climbing out of a pit of dead bodies and impersonating a nazi to escape a camp. so i think he had to hold himself on a very tight rein emotionally for so long that his emotional balance was permanently thrown. does that make sense?
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Tue, March 16, 2004 - 4:25 AMYes, it has been studied. It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. The same frugality can be seen in people who lived through the depression. It amounts to the need for control over one's life. There have been some good research on post war survivors going all the way back to the civil war. -
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Tue, March 16, 2004 - 10:21 AMMy grandmother was a survivor. Although she sent my mother to family in America, she stayed behind & it cost her dearly. She eventually was re-united with my mother. All the men were lost. There was no end to the paranoia of her household until her end. Let us all stand together that it doesn't happen again.
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Tue, March 16, 2004 - 11:50 AMgood point about PTSD. i guess i would assume that going through the warsaw ghetto or a nazi concentration camp (or for example being a slave on a plantation) is a much more severe and emotionally debilitating experience than, for example, living through a depression or being a soldier in a war. it's not just about hunger and hardship but about being totally dehumanized. so, i would guess that going through hunger would lead you to be neurotic about the need to control your own life. but i would expect that there would be additional neuroses associated with going through the dehumanizing experiences of the camps. does that make sense? -
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Unsu...
Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Thu, March 18, 2004 - 1:41 PMyes, completely. in fact, the overwhelming experience of my childhood being raised by a survivor was that i was being toughened up and life was threatening in many ways. i felt i was being broken in with a lot of terror tactics - for example, tantrums where he would chase me and insist that i run from him again and again as he pulled me from hiding places as he chased me around the house - it was like being in a pogram. in a way, i think he was trying to teach me to be tough, to be prepared for what he went through.
because my dad was a very "soft" child - wealthy merchant parents, and he was thrown into these situations and survived by his wits. emotionally i think he was attempting to prepare me for a similar journey.
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Wed, March 24, 2004 - 4:55 AMUri, It does make sense and yes there are more complicating factors but PTSD covers most of them. It's a difference of degree and intensity. Say you've been through WWII, no matter yuor experience, it's lasted, at most, 10 years. Take the battered spouce that's been married for 25 years lving in terror each day. Who do you think came out of it worse? There are lots of things to take into account and psychology doesn't even begin to understand some of the effects these situations have on people.
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Fri, March 19, 2004 - 5:23 AMMy father was thrown onto a train to Sweden with my Aunt, in 1938 and they assumed they would never see my grandparents again. My grandmother used money and her wits and showed up at the SS station daily to buy my grandfather out of a work camp. She eventually succeeded, .My grandfather was then put to work to build Bergen-Belsen. She emigrated to London, and eventually was once again able to get my grandfather out before he got thrown into a death camp.
In 1941 they managed to reunite but my grandfather was an ill man the rest of his life. My father had spent two years in a refuge farm in Sweden, learning the language and going to school.
I don't think my father was ever starving during the war, but I do know that my grandmother hated everything German for the rest of her life, and used to say she could spit at them everytime a German person was mentioned.
Penny
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Sun, March 21, 2004 - 5:36 AMHi,
We seem to have very similar family histories. Cant figure out how to send you a message through tribe. Please send me one if you can figure it out. Would love to be in touch.
Jeanette -
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Re: how do i put this sensitively...
Mon, March 22, 2004 - 9:29 AMJeanette, you can easily reach me at govega@optonline.net if you want to chat about that.
Penny
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