Conquering the Demons from the Holocaust

Each night after falling asleep, the demons keep coming back. They personify the millions of victims of the Second World War; infants, adolescents, young men and women, and the elderly who suffocated in the gas chambers or were burnt or shot or who starved to death. The terrible pictures return in the dreams of the survivors and the survivors keep re-experiencing the tragedy over and over.

Despite the fact that over sixty years have passed since the war, the enormous impact of Holocaust Trauma upon the survivors becomes even more apparent, because for them, the passage of time has made it even more difficult to cope.

As described in my recent book on Holocaust Trauma: Psychological Effects and Treatment (iUniverse, 2009), such late consequences are a part of the present lives of millions of people around the world. But it does not only affect the approximately half a million first generation of Holocaust survivors, who are already in their 80s or older. It also affects their children and grandchildren, as well as their spouses and caretakers. Collectively, it influences the Jewish populations in Israel and elsewhere, as well as the non-Jewish populations, such as the societies in Germany and Austria, and other war-torn European and non-European countries. The Holocaust is in their blood, in their bones and in their minds. They have thoroughly internalized its lessons and are constantly aware of the possibility of a new attempt of annihilation. It’s not a question if, but when it will happen again.

For everyone else, the actuality of the Holocaust also seems to have increased in recent years and there is a growing interest in anything related to the Holocaust during the last decade, with more educational programs, commemoration events and memorial museums than ever. Such programs urged us ‘not to forget’ what happened during the Holocaust. For the most traumatized populations, however, it is both impossible and unnecessary to ask them not to forget, since they keep remembering both day and night. For the survivors, it is most important that they should not forget. They are all the others; the other peoples of the world, some of who were involved in the war and others who had nothing to do with it. They should learn from the Holocaust. So that it will not happen again. It means; another genocide.

But they seem to have already forgotten most of it. Despite some public gestures of reconciliation, most people who are today living in the perpetrator nations of Germany and Austria have been successfully repressing most memories of World War II and left the working through of the past to subsequent generations. As a result, the ancient anti-Semitic sentiments, which were never eradicated despite everything, are again expressed. It is no longer politically incorrect to express anti-Jewish feelings, especially if they are concealed as anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli opinion. People living in other parts of the world are also showing increasing expressions of the “new” anti-Semitism. While the Nazi Holocaust led to the attempt at total annihilation of the Jewish people, the recent “new” anti-Semitism may lead to “wiping Israel off the map” as stated by Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

All of these new threats indicate that much of the world hasn’t learned the lesson. And while there are various shades and grades of Holocaust denial, much of the world acts as if the Holocaust never happened.

So, what are the lessons of the Holocaust? What meaning should it have for future generations?

For the Jewish people, it provided the raison d’être for the need of a Jewish homeland and the justification for creating the Jewish state of Israel. It became the legitimizing factor for the state’s right to exist, and it underscored the urgency and vital necessity for pursuing its national interests. Contrary to popular opinion, however, this original significance has not lost its significance. Though the Holocaust in the future might be compared to a distant historic event, such as the exodus of Egypt, and be remembered and retold from generation to generation, it still has a profound effect on everything that happens in Israel today.

The Holocaust may sometimes be felt only as an undercurrent of vague energy without clear structure. But strong emotions easily evolve at every point of national crisis. At these times, the new trauma re-actualizes the old one. For example, during the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the settlers felt that they were exposed to a “pogrom” and in signs posted around Israel they accused the government of wanting to make this geographic area Judenrein.

For the non-Jewish world, however, the lessons of the Holocaust are much more difficult to spell out. Does the Holocaust have a lesson for the whole of people-kind, which is being ignored?

The obvious lessons of the dangers of malignant prejudice and racism, of cruel dictators and totalitarian regimes, and of the possibility of recurrent acts of genocide among human beings are easily taught. But what has the world learned to do in situations when dictators again rise to power and threaten another people with genocide, such as in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Darfur? Strangely enough, various countries who were all involved in the Second World War seemed to have learned a very different and almost opposite lesson from the Holocaust. The German population seemed to have learned to universally oppose all armed conflict and to choose peaceful means for resolving conflicts, while much of the US (and perhaps the UK) learned that such major threats must be confronted with military means. The latter have learned from the Second World War that totalitarian regimes such as those in Iraq, North Korea and Iran are real threats, which must be confronted head on and that terrorist organizations such as Al Qaida and other manifestations of the Axis of Evil may be as dangerous as Hitler.

In addition to these lessons, there are other more personal, moral, theological and existential lessons, which cannot be simply explained by the above political conclusions. In fact, in our efforts to digest the Holocaust, we become more perplexed and often raise more questions than answers. It is difficult to remain indifferent to these questions. Living in this time and age, we cannot (and should not) stop asking them, even if they leave us disturbed and restless to the edge of insanity. These questions and answers constitute a very disturbing lesson of the Holocaust.

Because it is an ugly one.

It tells the story of genocide and racial persecution, of unimaginable cruelty and non-existent compassion. Anyone who learns about what happened will be unable to find some sense in it all. To the question: “How could it have happened?” we respond with guilty silence and to the question: “Could it happen again?” we nod in shame.

As we attempt to digest this part of history, we are confronted with the forceful presence of the ultimate evil and “unconditional hate”; the cruelty of human beings to each other, the mockery of basic human values and the unlimited degradation of people. We learn about the dangers of blind obedience to authority and detached bureaucratic extermination.

But at the same time, the history of the Holocaust also reveals great manifestations of compassion, courage and heroism.

These two opposite learning experiences are perhaps the main lesson to be learned from the Holocaust. They have often been observed among survivors of the Holocaust and they have been variously depicted as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and post-traumatic growth (PTG). PTSD made people more vulnerable to stress, while PTG made them more resilient. This paradoxical learning experience has not only bewildered generations of trauma therapists. It may be seen also as a significant lesson of the Holocaust itself.

Survivors of trauma have learned that the world is evil and meaningless, that life is terminal and that people are unworthy. But they have also experienced that there may be hope even in the worst of conditions. If we listen carefully to their stories, we will slowly come to appreciate this profound lesson.

As we become more accustomed to this stereophonic sound, we come to realize that this dual reality does not only include the assumptive world of the victims, but also of the perpetrators (who may not be only cruel), the rescuers (who may not be only saints) and the bystanders (who may not be only indifferent). While we have a tendency to look at these main actors of the Second World War in black-and-white terms, and try to understand them beyond the realm of normal human existence, we may come to understand and appreciate that they were all ordinary people of flesh and blood, like ourselves and everybody else.

Being confronted with Holocaust trauma in depth, means that we are also facing ourselves today. This might be the main lesson for the world to internalize.

Perhaps when everybody starts to remember in this way, it will perhaps enable the survivors – finally – to start to forget?