By Caitlin Trude

Courtesy of Creative Commons

Yom Hashoah, or “Holocaust Remembrance Day” in Hebrew, falls on the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar, also corresponding with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland. This year, April 16 is Yom Hashoah, a day on which all those affected by the Holocaust are commemorated.

Reflecting on the events of the Holocaust nearly 80 years later allows society to contemplate the impact of prejudice and hate, identify and honor those who suffered, and determine what steps the world must take in order to prevent further genocides from taking place.

Jonathan Kirsch, an attorney, book editor for the Jewish Journal and author of several books, including “The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan,” has focused much of his writing on Holocaust studies.

“The heartbreaking truth is that humankind has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust because we have allowed other genocides to take place,” Kirsch says. “In that sense, the lesson of the Holocaust is the lesson that the world has not yet learned.”

While the Holocaust remains the largest single act of genocide in history, it is far from the most recent genocide. During the Vietnam War, the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia resulted in more than 1.7 million deaths. Almost 20 years later, 800,000 Rwandans were killed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Only a year later, the Srebrenica massacre  in July 1995 led to the genocide of more than 7,000 Bosniaks at the hands of Serb forces.

“There’s a great debate within the scholarship of the Holocaust over the question of whether the Holocaust is something unique or just another example of genocide,” Kirsch says. “Arguments have been made that the Holocaust can be distinguished from other incidents of genocide, and a great deal of effort has been expended in explaining why it is unique. But I think that even the historians who argue for the uniqueness of the Holocaust will concede that all genocides are a moral evil, and a historical tragedy.”

The “uniqueness” of the Holocaust can be identified by the scale of persons sent to the death camps between 1933 and 1945. Eleven million people – 6 million of whom were Jews – is an aspect that distinguishes the Holocaust from other genocides.

Kirsch also comments that the fact that the Holocaust was carried out on an “industrial scale” via death camps that functioned as death factories.

This is not necessarily a common characteristic of genocides, as he states that “the Holocaust was a genocide that was conducted with industrialized killing centers and high technology.”

Despite the horrors faced by the Jews and other people groups who experienced prejudice by the Nazi Party, Kirsch believes that the events of the Holocaust have created a platform for Holocaust studies, in which the voices of the period still can be heard despite Adolf Hitler’s attempt to silence them.

“I think that there is a higher purpose that’s served when we continue to think about and talk about the Holocaust,” Kirsch says, “which is a particular genocide that took place in WWII because it raises awareness of the threat that other genocides can happen somewhere else. I think that’s the purpose of Holocaust studies and Holocaust literature.”

Another crucial factor in remembering the Holocaust is not only to honor the lives directly affected, but to also help survivors and their families heal from tragedy and recognize the importance of reflecting on heritage and legacy.

Nattan Hollander, MFT, a psychotherapist in Los Angeles, owns a private practice and is the founder of Tending the Roots, an organization aimed at helping patients heal from the impact of genocide experienced by family members.

“One of my specializations is working with trauma, and I have a particular interest in the topic of intergenerational trauma, and that interest comes from my own background and my own personal experience with this type of trauma because both my grandparents are Holocaust survivors,” Hollander says.

It was not until Hollander entered graduate school for psychology that he directed his focus toward the generational impact of families’ histories and heritages.

“In my education in psychology, I come from part of a tradition called ‘depth psychology’ that looks at the personal psyche as a vast entity that only a small part of it is what we are,” Hollander iterates. “And this vast, deep psyche is also seen as a kind of deposit for experiences whether we remember them or not. Those experiences, whether we remember them or not, whether we talk about them or not, get passed down from generation to generation. … The stuff that parents choose not to deal with, in other words, it hurts; pain and trauma that they choose not to deal with [gets] put it in a box somewhere in the back of their mind. … That does not stay isolated. It gets passed down to their children.”

Judith Shulevitz, a writer for The New Republic, shares some recent research on the subject of intergenerational trauma in her article“The Science of Suffering.” In it, she highlights some of her findings in her interview with Helen Epstein, author and daughter of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt survivors.

“Fear. Years it (my parents’ trauma) lay in an iron box buried so deep inside me that I was never just what it was,” Epstein says in the report.

“Children may absorb parents’ psychic burdens as much by osmosis as from stories,” Shulevitz adds.

Furthermore, Shulevitz proposes that remembering the past can lay a foundation for helping post-Holocaust generations heal from families’ trauma: “If the intergenerational transmission of trauma can help scientists understand the mechanics of risk and resilience, they may be able to offer hope not just for individuals but also for entire communities as they struggle to cast off the shadow of the past.”

The symptoms Hollander has seen passed down in families include those associated with depression and anxiety. Hollander’s goal as a psychotherapist is not only to prevent symptoms from recurring, but also to instill “positive values” in his patients.

“It seems to me that the values of wholeness, meaning and purpose are things that are passed down in the family,” Hollander says. “And when we are dealing with the absence of these values in our life, it’s very helpful to look back in order to start the process of reclaiming these values.”

He adds, “I see my interests and approach as being pragmatic. By that I mean, this has happened and we are here living with the consequences. What can we do about it?”

Although Tending the Roots was initially centered on families affected by the Holocaust specifically, Hollander shifted the focus of his organization, realizing that the intergenerational trauma following genocides was “not exclusively a Jewish problem,” as genocides have continued to occur even after the last world war.

While Hollander and Kirsch’s career focuses differ greatly, what they share in common goes beyond Jewish heritage. Both recognize the wounds that the Holocaust has left behind not only on survivors, but also their descendants and others striving to understand the horrors of genocide.

Holocaust Remembrance Day allows for more than conversation and opportunities for learning about history. This time also provides us the opportunity to learn about oneself and the complexities of prejudice, suffering and humanity.