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Issue 6, Winter 2016

Witness Theater at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield, Michigan

By Charles Silow, PhD On April 8, 2013 at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a group of six Holocaust survivors and five high schools students performed in a Witness Theater project in front of an audience of 400. Under the direction of Corrine Stavish, professor of Speech and Literature…

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Issue 6, Winter 2016

A Multidimensional Exploration of the Effects of Identity Ruptures in Israeli and North American Holocaust Survivors

Clinical, Policy, and Programmatic Implications written by: Yael Danieli Group Project for Holocaust Survivors and their Children, NY, USA Fran H. Norris Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA Author Note This study was supported by grants from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Anti-Defamation League and Richard Rockefeller, M.D.…

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Issue 6, Winter 2016

Never Forget-Never Enough

by Chavie Brumer, LCSW-R “But my mother won’t go and I don’t know what else to do,” says the caregiver in the back row, clearly at her wit’s end.  She is referring to the fact that her mother, a Holocaust survivor, refuses to see the doctor or the social worker despite the fact that her…

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Issue 6, Winter 2016

Beshert – It was Meant to Be

A book review by Dr. George Halasz There is a famous Chasidic saying, “In the end is the beginning,” which I had in mind as I read Suzanna Eibuszyc’s refined translation of her late mother’s moving memoir, “Beshert – It was Meant to Be.” The end of each handwritten word, penned in Polish by her mother in…

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Issue 6, Winter 2016

Encounters with Chronic Psychiatric Holocaust Survivors: Trauma, Psychosis and Functionality

By Irit Felsen, Ph.D. Part I Abstract This paper describes encounters with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who were diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent decades in psychiatric institutions in Israel. The interviews with the patients took place in the context of the Testimony Project (Strous et al., 2005). The focus of this paper is on…

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Issue 6, Winter 2016

Witness Theater in New York: Transforming Holocaust Survivors, High School Students and Communities through Therapeutic Theater

by Adeena Horowitz, LMSW Administrative Director, Nazi Victim Services Program, Selfhelp Community Services, Inc. Witness Theater was conceived and initiated by Irit and Ezra Dagan, and developed and expanded by JDC-Eshel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s elderly division in Israel. The essence of this unique program is the creation of a therapeutic environment for…