Child survivors of the Holocaust: symptoms and coping after fifty years

Holocaust survivors who were children during WW II have now reached the age of 52 to 67. Until about 10 years ago their voices were barely heard in society. Their successful adaptation to life may have contributed to this invisibility. However, reaching this stage of life, which is associated with the need to review life and with the crises of retirement and renewed losses, has activated the survivors to deal with their childhood. The impossibility of avoiding traumatic memories and an urge to deal with them have also contributed to the societal process of the survivors organizing and speaking out. Very little is known about this group with regard to their mental health status and the way they cope with their childhood memories. The present controlled double-blind study uses a randomized nonclinical sample and focuses on the level of psychosocial and post-traumatic symptoms, on achievement motivation, and on the way child survivors perceive the surrounding world. The results indicate a slightly higher level of psychosocial symptoms in the child survivors group (CS) than in the control group, a high level of post-traumatic symptomatology, and achievement motivation based mainly on the fear of failure. Surprisingly, the child survivors group shows a pattern of more positive views of the world than does the control group. This can be understood as a greater need to compensate for the lack of security suffered in childhood by creating a meaningful world in a chaotic reality.