A dialogue between descendants of Holocaust perpetrators and victims--session two

The legacy of the Holocaust lingers on, continuing to have a marked and pervasive effect on the survivors-and their second, third and fourth generation descendants. This is now well documented in the professional literature, in novels, on film and in museums. What has been virtually non-existent is activity which brings together the descendants of perpetrators and of victims to interact and move toward some rapprochment in the here and now, and for the future, and a literature documenting and analyzing such activity. This article describes a second dialogue session between German and Israeli mental health professionals, all of whom are descendants of survivors and/or are treating such descendants. This meeting was held during the International Family Therapy Association Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in October 1995, and some Mexican colleagues who had inherited the Holocaust legacy also participated, as did several others from Sweden and the United States. The interchanges about their memories and deeply entrenched feelings were heated, emotional and profound. All involved indicated they had experienced great anguish about coming, and in being present, and that during the session they felt some relief and gained some understanding of the "other." They urged continuation of this dialogue process, begun during a conference in Budapest, Hungary, in 1994.