Mental health effects of concentration camp imprisonment in survivors’ children

Introduction

The family life of concentration camp survivors has attracted the interest of researchers in various fields. The important issues have concerned the atmosphere at home, emotional attitudes, the roles played by the subjects, the methods they used to bring up their children, and their attitude to their offspring. The observations conducted hitherto on survivors have shown that life in a concentration camp and the associated experience of severe psycho‑somatic stress have left a permanent mark on the personality of the subjects examined.

Years after the traumatic factors disappeared, such individuals were found still to be suffering from permanent or increasing psychological disorders, which continued to influence their lives after liberation, and hence also had an effect on their families. Following these studies the next step was naturally to ask about the impact the concentration camp experience has had on the subsequent generations.

Publications on the medical and psycho‑social aftereffects of concentration camp experiences for survivors’ families have been accumulating since about 1968. In 1969, 320 questionnaires were sent to psychoanalysts in several countries asking whether they had treated children of survivors (Sigal and Rakoff, 1971). Notwithstanding the understandable reluctance on the part of analysts as well as of the examined children’s parents, it was hard not to suspect a connection between the children’s psychiatric disturbances and the oppression their parents had experienced in concentration camps. A few months later individual case studies started to be published, conducted by authors such as Edel, 1976; Laufer, 1976; Lipkovitz, 1974; Kerstenberg, 1974; Rosenberg, 1970; Sigal, 1971; and Trossman, 1968. Most of these studies focused on the type of disorder transferred to subsequent generations by a process of identification, and also on the therapy applied, the aim of which was not only to cope with the concentration camp experiences of the parents, but above all to help their children who were receiving treatment.

By the early 1970s studies on larger groups of second‑generation patients started to be published. This work may be divided into three groups: statistical surveys of entire populations of survivors in a given region, research conducted on selected groups focusing on a specific problem, and observations on specific groups of patients who consulted psychiatrists or other specialist physicians with their individual problems. However, all three types of works published involved analyses of second‑generation patients whose parents had survived a long period of severe stress in a concentration camp, and attempted to answer the question whether the effects of post‑concentration camp syndrome passed on to the second generation.

Sigal et al. (1966, 1971) have shown that as a consequence of their own psychological trauma survivor parents have a reduced capacity for control of and influence on their children. On the other hand, their children show depressive traits, and pose problems in being taught and brought up. After many years of observation and retrospective examination of the pathological effects in such families over two or three generations, Sigal believes that the consequences of the large‑scale, cumulative trauma will not expire in the second generation.

Observations on the second‑generation subjects carried out by Dominik, 1978; Edel, 1976; Kahn, 1976; Kerstenberg, 1974; Klimková-Deutschová, 1976 and Teutsch, 1964, have identified problems like belated puberty and maturity, behavioural disorders, symptoms of neurosis, inability to cope in critical situations, problems related to adolescence, social anxiety, weak emotional relationships, the feeling of isolation, and low self‑esteem. Work by Heftler (1976) and the research Kempisty (1973, 1979, 1982) carried out on a large collection of data in three stages in Poland, both have recorded the difference in the state of health of survivors’ children in comparison to their peers in the control group; and they have observed a prevalence for psychiatric disorders ten times as high as in the control group.

The history of second‑generation observations in the Kraków Psychiatric Clinic started in 1975, when staff of the neurosis ward noticed there was a group of patients receiving treatment who were survivors’ children. These observations gave rise to the following questions: were there any special features distinguishing the children of survivors from other neurotic patients; was the prevalence higher for them; and was there a similarity between the psychiatric changes in the survivors’ psychiatric structure due to post‑concentration camp syndrome and their children’s psychiatric structure?

In 1977, M. Dominik planned and commenced a series of observations. The aim was to find whether the psycho‑somatic after‑effects present in the survivors due to their concentration camp experiences were passed down to children born after their liberation and if so, whether the transfer had the characteristics of social inheritance. She applied a clinical psychiatric method and examined a group of adults, born after the return of one or both of their parents from a concentration camp after a period of incarceration not less than three years. Subjects who were examined came from two‑parent families (parents staying together at least until the child examined in the research was 18), and all of them, along with their parents, lived in Kraków. The parents belonged to one of the survivors’ clubs, and the subjects were chosen for the research in a random selection out of their children. 53 individuals were examined on the basis of these criteria. Statistical analysis was carried out on the research results for 50 of the cases, which was the group including one parent who was a survivor.

Material and method

In the case of the remaining three individuals, both parents were survivors and their results were not included in the statistical analysis. This paper presents a report on the findings related to them. Like the group with one survivor parent, the three subjects whose mothers and fathers had all been inmates for at least three years had been examined psychiatrically with the help of a questionnaire during an interview along with open‑ended questions and the opportunity to make their own remarks in the process. The questions concerned the examined subject’s personality, the general atmosphere during the examination, etc. The examined subjects’ mothers and fathers were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Before the start of the examination and the presentation of the questionnaires the subjects were informed about the aim of the research and told thet their identity would not be revealed.

The questionnaire filled in during the interview consisted of five following parts:

1. personal data;
2. biographical data including illnesses and diseases the subject had suffered from, his or here educational performance, relationsips with peers, sexual life, career choices, and the situation in his or her family of procreation;
3. questions concerning the examined individual’s personality profile;
4. a set of questions on the subjects’ relationships with their parents, mutual expression of emotions, attitudes to upbringing, contacts during pubescence and contacts at the time of the interview, a description of the parents’ personality profiles, an assessment of their marriage;
5. a set of questions on the parents’ concentration camp experiences, their influence on family life, the presence of post‑concentration camp issues at home, the examined individual’s attitude to the War and Germans, and questions on whether he or she felt isolated or different from his or her peers.

The questionnaires the parents were asked to complete had slight differences depending on the respondent’s sex. In general they concerned the psychiatric and somatic diseases they had suffered and their treatment, as well as their current state of health. The next questions related to their marriage and partner; finally the aim of the last set of questions was to obtain information on their relationship with the examined child, whether he or she had come up to their expectations; and feelings of anxiety and guilt over the child’s future.

At the end of the interview the examined person was given a list of 19 values and objectives, from which every respondent was asked to select 5 and arrange them in order of importance in their lives. The parents were asked to complete the same list.

Description of the families examined

The first family

The father completed secondary education; the mother started higher education but did not graduate. There are three children. The examined child, the eldest son, completed his higher educatio and became an architect. Neither parent is noticeably dominant in the family. In all three interviews the mother was described as good‑natured, active, emotional, warm‑hearted and hard‑working. According to the son, she tends to be somewhat suspicious, jealous about her husband, neurotic, and easily upset. The son has always been emotionally closer to his mother. His relationship with his father is quite good on the intellectual, but more distant on the emotional level. In the son’s relation, the childhood relationship with his father included anxiety, as the latter was dominant and even aggressive.

The father, too, is very active, hard‑working, reticent, suspicious, and emotionally cold. Both parents claim that their marriage is very good, but according to the son it is average. He describes himself as similar to both parents, but says he tries to be “the opposite” of his father. He considers himself good‑natured, sociable, full of energy, somewhat shy, but resolute, punctual, systematic, and establishing relationships with other people easily. He married for love when he was 23 and considers his marriage very good. The couple have not had children so far. In the subject’s opinion neither he nor his wife dominates the other, the relationship is based on partnership. His parents accepted his wife and they do not interfere in the marriage, but they did not provide any assistance to the couple, either. The subject started out on an independent life at quite a young age, and he and his wife do not live in his parents’ house. Currently there have been no conflicts between him and his parents, and he visits them several times a week.

The second family

Both the father and the mother completed secondary education. The examined child, a son, is the only one they had after the War. He graduated and is an agricultural engineer. The parents share an equal degree of responsibility for running the house. The whole family, including the interviewed son, consider the parents’ marriage very good. The mother is warm‑hearted, sympathetic, tolerant, does not hide her emotions, she is gentle, eager to help, and really cares for her house and family. According to her son she is neurotic and tends to lapse into anxiety states. The son is emotionally closer to his mother. Although he considers himself reserved and unemotional, he tends to express his feelings for his mother relatively often. Ever since childhood he has spent more time with his mother, as she did not have an out‑of‑house job. He used to talk to her quite often and even confided his problems to her. His relationship with his mother is still like that. His father has always been the opposite of his mother: sad, reticent, well‑disciplined, scrupulous, reserved, and persevering. The son was not afraid of him, but they were not emotionally close. The father was in favour of relatively strict upbringing; he was not good at showing his emotions. The son thinks that despite their different approaches, both of his parents cared for him and wanted to protect him just the same. He considers himself to be very similar to his father, and due to that he was able to stand on his own two feet and manage quite well in life. He did not have problems at school and university and went up to read the subject he had always wanted to study. He was not a problematic child. On the other hand, he considers himself rather shy and finds it difficult to establish relationships, hence his social life is limited, he does not take part in public affairs at all and prefers to stay at home and pursue his hobby. He married for love at the age of 27 and believes he has a very good marriage. Both parents accepted his marriage. His father, who tended to interfere in his business, no longer does so. The son left home at 22 and his parents have not been helping him financially since then. There have been no recent conflicts between him and his parents and he keeps in touch with them every day.

The third family

The father has university education, and the mother completed her secondary education. The examined son is the only child and like his father he is a medical graduate. The parents’ marriage is very good according to the mother, but average according to the father and son. At home the father is the dominant figure, and the mother is subdued and shows signs of anxiety. The son is very close to his mother and they show their emotions to and affection for each other. Ever since his childhood, has spent far more time with her than with his father. He feels respect for his father, whom he regards as an authority, but they have never shown any feelings for each other, not even in exceptional situations. The father has always imposed his opinion on the family; he is scrupulous, firm; he expects everyone to keep to a high standard and tends to have outbursts of anger. The mother is good‑natured, open‑hearted, scrupulous, aggressive, unsystematic and tends to be neurotic. Both parents were overprotective in his upbringing, and hence he considers himself rather dependent, managing only moderately in life, and not coming up to either his own or his parents’ expectations. He did not have any problems at school or university, but he found it difficult to establish relationships with peers. He is secretive and distrustful. He does not think he resembles either of his parents, but is more like his uncle (his mother’s brother), who is also a doctor. His parents did not only approve of, but also helped him in his career choices. He married for love at the age of 24 and considers his marriage very good. He and his wife have had one child. Although it is a partners’ relationship, he considers himself the dominant figure in his family of procreation. Neither of his parents approve of his marriage. The two families went through a period of fairly serious conflict, exacerbated by the fact that he and his wife and child still live in his parents’ house. His mother tends to interfere more often in his marriage and the upbringing of his child. His father no longer interferes in his family affairs. His parents still support him financially. The atmosphere is quieter now and there are no serious conflicts any longer.

Parents and children

The common denominator in all three, quite different, families is the condition of the parents’ mental health, which is inextricably marked by their concentration camp experience. All the mothers and all the fathers complain of depression, anxiety states, and nightmares which are often connected with the concentration camp. But while all the mothers consulted psychiatrists or practitioners of internal medicine for help, the fathers tried to cope with their problems on their own. This is reflected in their children’s view. In the opinion of the sons, their fathers are far less neurotic than their mothers, and their anxiety levels are much lower. And whereas the sons are inclined to attribute their mothers’ neurotic tendency to concentration camp experiences, they do not ascribe such a feature to post‑concentration camp symptoms in their fathers. On the other hand, all the parents unanimously report that they experienced a distinctly higher level of anxiety in connection with their children’s upbringing, and both the mothers and the fathers attribute this to having lived through the concentration camp nightmare.

The children under examination sensed their parents’ anxiety in their tiresome restrictions on their (the sons’) freedom (especially during pubescence), their prohibition of risky sports, constraints on going out, and delay in making decisions. The sons could readily observe their parents’ anxiety states in dire situations such as serious illness. However, one of the sons said that not only had his father not experienced anxiety in connection with him, but had remained calm and self-controlled in situations that had been extremely difficult for the family emotionally, and had undertaken sensible action. He is inclined to attribute this firmness and resilience on his father’s part to his concentration camp experience.

A few additional remarks should be made on the children‑parents relationships in survivors’ families in general, and their systems of upbringing in particular, as the parents’ experience of life in a concentration camp left a clear mark on the way they brought up their children. Most of the parents are against corporeal punishment and shouting, and see their opposition to such methods as a direct result of their own experience. Some of them think also that punishments should not be used at all and claim to have never punished their child. “Claim” is a key word here, for according to the sons things were different. In one relation, the fact that his father never hit him does not mean that he has never been disciplined, for instance by being humiliated or forced to feel guilty. On the other hand the sons think that for some types of misbehaviour a smack was the right type of punishment and accepted it as such.

Atmosphere at home

One of the features all of the parents brought into the atmosphere of their home was cultivating the friendships and acquaintances they had made with other survivors. This was the company in which their children spent holidays and important family occasions. Very often when they had trouble with their son the parents would turn to other survivors who were friends for advice, sometimes without realising it. There are instances of the parent denying or not remembering that he or she asked other survivors for help, while the son is able to give a detailed account of the different situations when this had happened.

All the parents believe that their children should know about the nightmare of their past in the concentration camp. Yet it still seems very hard to talk to them directly about their experiences.

The children’s experience of concentration camps subjects

The second‑generation individuals who were examined think that there is a marked presence of concentration camp issues at home: discussions with friends, books, films, visits to the site of the given camp. However, the sons talk about such matters more often to their peers or other people than to their own parents. There are also situations in which there are very long periods of silence on the subject, followed by a visit to the site of Auschwitz and a severe shock for a father and his son. Characteristically, one of the examined individuals said, “Actually they have never really stopped talking about it, but in fact they have never spoken to me personally on the subject.”

If we try to sum up such attitudes we could say that the type and force of the experience is so traumatic that after over three decades victims are still unable to talk directly and openly. Perhaps there is a hidden desire in these attitudes to protect the children and keep them away from their parents’ experiences. But the children want to know, though perhaps they are not making this plain enough. As if tired of general information from books and the media, they want to obtain more personal information from their loved ones, who for them were heroes.

The expression “I’m proud of my mother/father” occurred very frequently in the interviews. Another point associated with this statement is the recurrent tendency for the children to compare themselves to their heroic parents and rate themselves as “failures” in all aspects whatsoever. This is very clear especially in the case of the son who chose the same career as his father. He thinks that he did not come up to his father’s standard in anything at all, and never will. His low self‑esteem had a bad influence on his own family life, since he found it very hard to perform the so‑called male roles in life.

In the part of the interview on the effect on family life of post‑concentration camp habits it turned out that the distinct or typical habits described in the literature, such as hoarding food and saving bits of bread, shunning clothes with a striped pattern, folding day clothes in a neat pile before going to bed etc., haven not affected the children to any significant extent. Not only have such habits not been passed down to the children, but also they tend to go unnoticed by them. The only noticeable feature which clearly affects the children is the parents’ annoying lack of attention to material matters.

A different generation

The next question was the alleged “different generation” in the eyes of the parents and the examined second‑generation sons themselves. In the opinion of the parents their children differ significantly from their peers. They tend to be more nervous and sensitive, less resistant to stress (according to the parents). For some of the parents this implies better social effectiveness, since their children are more gifted and can establish social relationships more easily. But for other parents sensitivity and nervousness are associated with not being able to cope in life and emotional immaturity. The sons do not see themselves as significantly different from their peers. They do not feel a sense of belonging to the survivors’ community; and whenever they do observe any differences between themselves and their peers, again their opinions differ widely. They present attitudes which may be viewed as mirror opposites. They place aggressiveness and assertiveness against incompetenc, weakness, and unbreaking emotional bond with their parents.

As regards their attitude to Germans and Germany, all three sons said that in their childhood they went through a period of extreme hatred and thirst for vengeance. Currently they do not feel such emotions any longer but they are not particularly interested in Germans as a nation either. None of them speaks German, and none has been to Germany.

Two hierarchies of values

The last point in this study is an attempt to compare the parents’ and children’s lists of values and objectives. To recapitulate, the respondents were asked to select five values and objectives out of a list of nineteen and arrange them in order of importance in their lives. They could also add their own values or objectives not included on the list. It turned out that the sons marked items which were the very opposite of what their fathers chose. One father put “peace and quiet, harmony, warm family life” at the top of his list, whereas his son had “a life full of excitement and adventure” first. The opposite happened in another family: the father selected “excitement and adventure”, while the son had “a quiet, regular lifestyle” at the head of his list. There were no characteristic trends that stood out in the comparison of the mother’s lists with the sons’ lists. We may draw a conclusion that the men in the families showed a marked tendency to rival one another, and hence we could speculate that the sons are strongly emotionally dependent on their fathers, though of course such a speculation can only serve as a hypothesis requiring verification on a larger amount of data.

Remarkably, none of the survivors, neither the men nor the women, put “health” on their list, although all of them suffered from a variety of illnesses and conditions. Instead there was a high incidence in their lists of the value of “being a good citizen, loving one’s country, nation, land, Polish customs and culture,” notwithstanding the fact that this was the kind of attitude that got many victims into concentration camps.

Final remarks

In our conclusions we have to stress the fact that all three families are very well adapted socially. Despite the psycho‑somatic disorders the parents report they suffered in connection with their imprisonment in a concentration camp, and in spite of the far‑reaching and undeniable effects of the concentration camp experience on the whole family life, and finally in spite of some of the problems mentioned by the second‑generation respondents, none of them said they experienced problems with learning at school or university; all three of them had graduated, were successful in their professional lives, and felt they had made the right career choices, which brought them satisfaction. They all married before the age of thirty, their marriages were love matches, and they say their married life is good.

We could perhaps put forward a hypothesis that the parents of these three young men are individuals with personality traits which helped them survive the concentration camp, later set up a family and persevere for many long years in their married lives. Such personality traits, if handed down to their offspring, would help the children to be well adapted socially. We could even speculate that the parents consciously or subconsciously trained their children to espouse and develop such traits, which enabled them not only to lead a good life but also to compensate for the losses incurred by the parents.

However, we must bear in mind that these remarks are based only on the data collected in this case study which cannot by any means serve as a ground for more general conclusions. Nonetheless the findings show that more research of this type should be conducted on a wider scale. Prospective researchers already have at their disposal considerable resources of literature, both on the KZ‑syndrome (e.g. Kępiński, 1970; Klimková‑Deutschová, 1976; Leśniak, 1965; Orwid, 1964; Szymusik, 1964; Teutsch, 1964), as well as studies on the long‑term effects of Nazi persecution.

Translated from original article: Banach G., Dominik M. Psychiatryczne następstwa obozów hitlerowskich w drugim pokoleniu byłych więźniów. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1985.