Any 2nd Generation Survivor's Here

This is a very good thread NF and thanks for starting it. I am very interested in what you have to say as I am heavily influenced by the holocaust in my life now. My partner is Jewish and his extended family dissappeared in Auschwitz. Luckily his mother only a young child during the war survived as she and her mother were living in hiding in an annexxe to a house here in Holland. My partner like many suffers greatly from the terrors and memories and what if's that took place during the holocaust. He was diagnosed at the age of 13 with a type of PTSD related to the holocaust, I cant translate it into english but he is unable to process what happened as it is too traumatic, eventhough he was not in it. We cannot watch any movie related to the holocaust as it is too close to comfort for him and he gets extremely distressed. We have been on several occassions to the holocaust memorial in Berlin and again it is very distressing.

Indeed you are right people with mental health issues suffered greatly also during the war alongside Jews, Homosexuals and Gypsies from central europe.

Thank you for remembering those.

Your welcome. Your yourself would have 2 strikes against you. Doesn't that suck. Not being able to revisit this is PTSD. Many who survived the camps themselves say they became emotionally numb while there. Probably the only way to survive. Thanks for sharing Paddy!

Without my faith I would be very afraid at the present goals of the current administration of the USA. I don't wish a political discussion, but the one of "social justice" that is pressed is directly from the Nazi camp. When I heard a speech last year about old people needing to quit expecting medical care and realize when it was time to go home and die... I cringed. Then when I read what many of the current selected "czars" have said and written about not just the elderly, but the disabled, I cringe.

That there are people in the world today who do not appreciate life, and the lives of everyone - not just able bodied /minded people - is very sad, and scary. That these types of thinkers are in power anywhere in the world is massively concerning to me.

Yes, without a study of the history of the world, the ignorant might allow it again ... and without enough people who understand, who dare to stand up and shout (or post) when they see it on the horizon again ( or in 3rd world countries) they might not garner enough support to keep such atrocities from occurring again.

Not only have those with tatoo'd numbers on their forearms lived with PTSD (even though it began long before there was a word for it) and have not only continued the illness through parenting without healing, it has been perpetrated onto the families though the repeating of the horrible stories and the seriousness of feeling and experiencing the horrors. I believe never forget, but remembering and being mentally affected are two different things to me. There must be a safe way to remember, I think.

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Nope. Not an easier way. Like anything else, the only way out is through. There are large memorials, memberance days. American and Soviet veterans who are bearing whtness and giving testimony to what they experienced as they liberated the camps. There are survivors all over the world some who have gad their testimonials video recorded. There are some survivors that have been traumatized so badly, that although they are being well cared for today, yet in their minds, they still live in the Holocaust which was 65 years ago.

_Sky....

I mean....(JD)....

Thank you for your opinion.

we dont know if we are second generation but our fathers parents were jewish and so i guess we are too,and even if not we still follow the messianic faith and have always had a great interest in and a place in our heart for the holocaust and those who were affected by it. thank you for posting this we would very much like it if you continued

I am not a second generation survivor, however, I would like to say that my grandfather helped to liberate some of the camps. He still remembers it to this day in such detail, even down to how the camps smelled and the sight of the SS officers pacing the length of the camps. He says it was a terrifying experience and won’t talk about it in great detail. My grandfather was diagnosed with PTSD after he returned from his time in the military.

Yeah, a lot of people came back from WWII but their minds are still back there. But getting back to the mentally ill victims of the T4 program, I know a lot of other groups pay tribute to these victims along with their own group. Although that is a fine thing, I guess I wanted to share the history with my fellow people, present day people that have a mental illness. I did a lot of research on this last year and thought that maybe by sharing and spreading the word, when the yearly observance of this came around next year, I could do something special to honor them too.

And you most eloquently have.

Thanks Notz! Did not realize how many people this would touch. I guess I did it.

And so, the history of the mentally ill during the Nazi era. That other genocides are taking place euen today. On a more personal note, "never again, never forget" doesn't get the word out there, it doesn't educate and therefore does not work. Spreading the message and educating may not be enough. But ultimately it is up to mankind to do what even God cannot do, which is for all of man to get along.

I need my fix and you have not posted !

Sorry Tishie! Sometimes it is a hard subject just yesterday I was laying in bed and could hear the gardeners using a weed eater and gardner was giving the motor spirts of gas. The people operating the motors (before they started using Zyclon B which did not require a motor) would start and stop the motor as needed until the patients were dead. Even not having been there, the sound of that weed eater was a little much. Had to leave the apartment. So even hearing the testimony about the sound of the motor, knowing that sound would be the last they would hear sets me off. How do people know all this stuff? The Nazi's kept very careful records. And that Zyclon B gas, was manufactured by a company called IG Farben, a now defunct division of Bayer! Yes, that Bayer. So how many of our caretakers used Children's Bayer asprin cool our fevers? Bayer is banned from my house.

Oh I know as a young person I had "issues" with many products. I mainly learned through gross humor, "brought to you by xxxx, those that provided the gas for the holocaust" . Whether true or not, the stories surely helped me realize the large span of evil in the world and the hatred of people by some people. I also learned that millions of NON Jewish people were also murdered, many being Christians (Ministers, Catholics included) who sought to protect the Jewish people. And yes, many were disabled, mentally ill, and homosexual.

One of the key elements that allowed this to occur is the art of propaganda. It was later revealed that the Nazi's learned how to slant the message, winning over people to their cause, by having learned from the Woodrow Wilson politics. We currently have such an administration that has touted Wilson and FDR both, and are lock step in their efforts to control the people.

We can discuss this forever, but until we break out of our laziness and DO SOMETHING it will happen again. Finding out what and how we can prevent such atrocities again would be a good will effort, imo. But we can each be sure that we don't follow without understanding. We need to know what our government officials are doing - or not doing (such as condemning or passing bills they haven't even bothered to READ! Sorry, I think that is just unbelieveable, and yet, what can we do about it?)

Keep the discussion going, keep talking, don't let evil actions win.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While the term "Holocaust victims" generally refers to Jews, the German Nazis also persecuted and often killed millions of members of other groups they considered inferior (Untermenschen). In addition to Jews, the targeted groups included Poles (of whom 2 million gentile Poles were killed) and some other Slavic peoples, Soviets (particularly prisoners of war), Romanies (also known as Gypsies), some Africans, Asians and others who did not belong to the "Aryan race", the mentally ill, physically disabled and the mentally retarded, homosexuals and transsexual people, and political opponents and religious dissidents such as communists, trade unionists, and Jehovah's Witnesses.[1][2] Taking into account all of the victims of Nazi persecution, the Nazis systematically killed an estimated 6 million Jews and were responsible for an estimated 11 million additional deaths during the war. Donald Niewyk suggests that the broadest definition, including Soviet civilian deaths, would produce a death toll of 17 million people killed.[3]

From http://www.swans.com/library/art7/ga120.html (this site has good information on this subject, pertinent to today)
Goebbels, the mastermind of the Nazi propaganda machine was said to have read the publications of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis and carefully studied the techniques used by Madison Avenue.

Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, took the techniques he learned in the CPI directly to Madison Avenue and became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic government. 'It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind,' wrote Bernays in his 1928 bombshell Propaganda.

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, founded in 1937 to educate the public about the nature of propaganda, identified "seven basic propaganda devices: Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon." (8)

Sounds a lot like bullying to me.

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Although a thougt provocing response, I would like the focus of this thread to remain centered on PTSD. I am aware and have studied this stuff to stop the nightmares and the horrors that come unbidden into my mind.

I knew a woman who was in one of the concentration camps, she became a Dr who specialised in seeing children who had been SA and gathered physical evidence for the police.

She would NEVER mention her past experiences however wore her numbers with pride and allow them to be seen.

She would have been in Auschwitz...that was the only camp that tatooed numbers on inmates. Lots of people never talk, ironically they are being encouraged to bear witness. It is the way to never forget. Those who forget the past are condemed to repeat it. The only reason I was told was because of the age of the survivor as well as hiding. I was always told hiding was better than the camps. But to recently learn that there are well cared for survivors in eldercare facilities who's minds have been stuck in Nazi Germany for the last 65 years. My PTSD is a joke compared to what they live with. Some of them are terrified of shower rooms.

Its sad as I would imagine she would be dead now, it was over 25 years ago and she seem very very old then.

Sorry, thought my thoughts showed the connections.

Part of PTSD is feeling out of control. Being able to come up with a solution or even as some people become activists, helps heal. Feeling hopeless adds to the illness. As does the secondary trauma of having to "never forget" ... as if anyone could, but the trauma has been transferred to downline relatives.... Not by choice but perhaps by ignorance: those who insisted we not forget were operating somewhat out of the disorder. It's one thing to never forget, another to relive by proxy so as not to forget. At 2 am this morning I watched the story of Corrie Ten Boom, and her sister--who died before release from Ravensbruck-- was always positive about God and hope. You need faith and perspective when experiencing PTSD.... and it's difficult to find.

And one of the reasons the mentally ill were killed was because the propaganda did not work on them! They could not be controlled with any effectiveness. They had no use to the Nazi's society of progressivism.

When I first moved here to be near mom, 10 years ago, I often saw tatoo'd arms while visiting her and at a local restaurant frequented by her neighbors. Of course, now I rarely see one, but then mom is gone too. I don't think I knew that only Auschwitz was the only place that tatoo'd.)

I wonder if there's any statistics about the scope of PTSD among survivors of the camps. Betsie Ten Boom obviously did not suffer from it, though she died months before her sister was released as she had dreamed. And, of course, the disorder didn't have such a name prior to the Vietnam conflict.

Believe in Him or not --- GOD LOVES YOU!

Want to share your Christian faith? Click HERE

Hey NuckingFutz

Not ever posted on this thread but I have read. My father's family had to leave his oldest brother behind in Poland when my grandparents immigrated to the USA, .... this was several years before WWII. Then my father and several other siblings were born here in the US. None of the family in the U.S. got to meet that oldest brother (he passed away before anyone could get over there)but we are told by family members there that he helped a jewish family stay safe..... and that's all he would ever say about it. Heaven only knows what he witnessed and experienced

My mother is half gypsy blood(the other half is Norwegian) ---I got the darker features not the north European light features..... seems I would be in a heap of trouble, with olive skin and dark features, were I to be put in Poland in the early 1940's

on a side note-- have you seen the movie - "Freedom Writers"? oh it's very good(IMO), it's about the gangs and youth at risk in Los Angeles and how they learn about and relate to the survivors of the Nazi regime.

anyway-- thanks for writing your posts

peace to you

fins