Trudy Gold
Second Generation Trauma From Both Sides of the Fence
Summary
Trudy Gold and psychotherapist Maya Lasker-Wallfisch discuss the intergenerational trauma that is experienced by both the children of the victims as well as the children of the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Maya speaks about this both as a professional and also as the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
Maya Lasker-Wallfisch
Maya Lasker-Wallfisch was born in London into a family of musicians. Her mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is of Jewish-German descent and survived the concentration camps Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. After arriving in England, Anita became a cofounder of the English Chamber Orchestra. Maya has recently relocated to Berlin and works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, author, educator, and activist. Maya has a particular interest in the transgenerational trauma of the children of perpetrators and their victims. Her second and most recent book Ich schreib euch aus Berlin covers her relocation to Berlin which she is writing about to her grandparents in the form of letters. Currently, Maya is working on a film project about her journey to Auschwitz along with the son and grandson of Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz.
Yeah, well, I can’t speak for my brother, but I’ve felt deeply guilty for many years of my life, which is partly why I’ve made this huge push in the last few years to try to make up for the terrible things waste of my life for 50 years. So, yes, I felt enormous guilt that I have not been all that I could be and desperately trying to make up for that. And yeah, it is not an easy thing being the child of a survivor. Not an easy thing at all.
It’s not a helpful word. There’s no room for movement in that at all. I mean, I think what is essential, and again, is connected to this whole question of why do people not learn from history, is that if we can’t have engagement with those who have been born from perpetrators and those that have been born from, and I don’t like the word victims, but those that were persecuted. If we can’t begin to talk to each other and make meaning and try and sort of think about how to make a difference, there is no value in anything. And I really do think that it has to be relatable, because if people just go to memorial days or to go and listen to a survivor speak or, which is all important and valid, but it can’t end there, because it’s like hearing something really, my God, how, how, whatever. But how then, but then what happens next? What happens next? How do those lessons then go out into the world? How do we then actually, make a difference in our daily lives? How do we kind of behave in society that it has to go further? It has to go further. And why is this sort of, why are we the Jewish people and it’s not only the Jewish people, but why are we so hated? And I think it’s the most horrendous envy that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years.
Are they asking questions? I mean, that’s the thing. I think are they asking questions or they’re not asking questions. This is the question for the third generation. Do you tell the third generation? I think that’s the question, isn’t it? Well, I don’t, again, I think it really depends on, I don’t think you don’t tell them, but I think it depends on why you are telling them and how you are telling them. What is the context? That’s what’s really important. I think the sort of, how one is told and what one is told and the sort of real thinking that is required in that. Because one doesn’t want it to be burdened.