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Issue 4, Spring 2014

Life Beyond Despair

Exploring Holocaust Survivors’ Successful Coping and Adaption By Michelle Fishman “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ―Friedrich Nietzsche On May 8, 1945, Germany faced its unconditional surrender to Allied forces. With that, the near annihilation of European Jewry, which future generations would come to know as the Holocaust, drew to an end. The…

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Issue 4, Spring 2014

Preparing for the Care of the Aging Child Survivor of the Holocaust

By Dr. Robert Krell Adult survivors of the Holocaust, age 17 years or older at the time of liberation, experience postwar life differently from those who were under age 16. The older survivors had more Jewish education, memories of family and tradition, lived near and married other survivors and found jobs.  The child survivors not…

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Issue 4, Spring 2014

“Food & Love” – On the Role of the “Coordinator of Services for Holocaust survivors” at the Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center in Israel

by Naomi Shacham, MSW “And I was hungry For food And for love I was hungry To feel what it is like to belong to someone I was hungry” (Wilhelmina, 2004) The poem above, written by an aging Holocaust Survivor, reflects the multi-faceted nature of the role of coordinator of services for hospitalized Holocaust survivors…

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Issue 4, Spring 2014

Ripples of Trauma and Resilience: Partner Relationships among Second-Generation Survivors of the Holocaust

By Eli Somer*1 and Moshe Nizri1 Many researchers assume that the continuing influences of the Holocaust on its survivors are long-term, and hypothesize that its stamp is also present in the lives of the second and third generations of Holocaust survivors (e.g., Shmotkin et al., 2011). This assumption notwithstanding, controlled studies have found that second-generation…

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Issue 4, Spring 2014

Caring for Holocaust Survivors With Sensitivity at End-of-Life MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care, August 2013

When providing services to Holocaust survivors, it is important that we are particularly mindful of our words and actions, especially because we may be the last generation of caregivers and clinicians who have the honor, as well as the moral obligation, of delivering compassionate health services to survivors. Caring for Holocaust survivors at end of life is rewarding when it leads to a peaceful passage at the end of the natural life span of our patients, an experience denied to those who were murdered during the horrific years of the Nazi regime.