On the role of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors known as 3G, as transformative vessels for unprocessed trauma and survivor's guilt.

Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, also known as 3G, as in the third generation after the Holocaust,  possess great potentiality not just for self healing, but also for ancestral healing up to and beyond the Holocaust. A child’s bond with a grandparent has been well documented and researched. Having a trusted adult that is not a parent serves as an additional protective factor in family dynamics against the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal conditions. The second generation, 2G, may not have had these additional adult figures. Additionally, as many survivors found it difficult to speak about their life, not just during the Holocaust but also prior to it, many in the second generation never had a sense of their extended family, it is almost as if their parents appeared from the dust, in some sense they did. The murder of three or four generations which occurred all at once, reset the starting point for many family trees, and even today there are many blanks left to fill in.

The space which the 3G occupy is one filled with the invaluable knowledge that has been uncovered over the past decades including research and treatment of trauma, post trauma, and epigenetic studies. Epigenetics is the study of how an environment can change the way a gene expresses itself, and that this new expression can be passed down biologically. That means that in families with a history of trauma and untreated PTSD, the response to stress is more than just a function of poor coping skills or learned behaviors, there is something physiological occurring. This is a fascinating new field of study.

The 2G did not have this information at their fingertips, nor were they afforded the emotional distance from their parents who often were abusive to them. Treatment at that time focused more on feelings and boundaries, that is, if the issue of being the child of a Holocaust survivor ever came up. It is incredibly difficult to separate the Holocaust survivor from the abusive parent, and while some in the 2G may have the understanding that their parents’ trauma affected their behavior, emotionally the 2G remains an abused child. They may understand that their parents’ trauma had no other way of being expressed, other than so violently, however, emotionally coming to terms with the fact that they were unfairly treated, remains a struggle. The emotional distance of not being disciplined by a Holocaust survivors, while also being the last generation to have intimate contact with them provides the 3G with a unique lens. 

Holocaust survivors seemed to be more open with their grandchildren to share stories, perhaps something in the generational distance allowed for this. The result was that the 3G was spared much of the immediate sting, but also was given an additional task; being vessel for recording information from their grandparents about their experience pre and during the Holocaust, and connecting them to their past lineage.

There is much in the research of the mechanisms of trauma, that is how it works physiologically; the familiar fight, flight, or freeze response. What about a person’s soul and spirit. Not the way a person expresses himself, but with what energetic intuition do they use the words they use and are attracted to the ideas that they’re attracted to, and to what extent does trauma affect this, and is passed on.

I see the trauma of Holocaust generation as being initially energetically frozen, it had nowhere to go, there was no time to think or process, the imperative was just to move on, regroup, rebuild, and ensure a future. While many suffered from mental and emotional observable symptoms, there was no language to discuss the intricacies of this energetically . Today we have a language that we didn’t back then, and the shame of talking about it and naming it has lessened. As the years went by and some normalcy was regained some of the survivors’ trauma thawed, as it were, and it dripped into the second generation, but like all liquid it can only flow to where there is an accepting vessel. My sense is that there was something in the 2G that was not able to energetically receive this and work through it. Blocks were put up, as energy could not be spent transmuting this trauma, energy had to be invested in securities of all sorts, in an attempt create a sense of security in a violent and volatile world, whether in actuality or in perception. In some ways that’s what the role of the 3G is, a vessel which receives this unprocessed trauma. Many studies have been done on the pathology of Holocaust survivors, their behaviors, parenting style and attachment. I have not been able to locate studies about the transmission of survivor’s guilt. 

Survivor’s guilt, as it sounds, is the blame a person assigns to themselves for surviving an event which others did not. A quick search relating to survivor’s guilt will mostly bring up a list of post trauma symptoms. I see survivor’s guilt as a shift in a person’s energetics. The focus is less on outward irrational behaviors or psychological symptoms, but rather core beliefs and orientation to the world. Existential questions about how events came out and what is the meaning of surviving, the role of the self as a link in the greater family lineage, questioning what could have been done differently, and the messages (both meta and direct) expressed at the 2G for the need for high achievement, and the low bar set for material and existential enjoyment, as being alive should be enough. I think many in the 2G and some in the 3G still haven’t fully grasped the immense survivor’s guilt, in addition to the trauma that Holocaust survivors carried with them, and had no idea what it means or what to do with it. But as vessels for this, I believe that the 3G have the power to transmute not just the trauma, but the guilt. To change the orientation to what the world is really like, and not live behind skewed trauma filters and be held down by trauma anchors. 

The 2G very often did not have a grandparent who could connect them to their greater past, but the 3G did, and some lucky few still do. This single thread makes it possible to engage in ancestral healing not just one or two generations back but as far as our we can imagine. I would assert that there is a reason we were born into the families we were born into, that there are repeating dynamics through the centuries. As our souls travel through time, we are here now because this is the time in which have the capability to bring about such healing. Doing so releases not just our physical selves but our ancestral lineage from the traumas and guilt that they’ve experienced throughout the centuries. It flowed all that time looking for those who can contain and transmute it. With the knowledge and healing capabilities that is currently afforded at this time, it might be possible to start engaging in it.