Relating stories of generational trauma
Voices of Resilience: An Anthology of Stories Written by Children of Holocaust Survivors
by Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman (ed.) with Wendy Bancroft & The Writers
The Netherlands: Amsterdam Publishers, 2026
$24.95 / 9789493418608
Reviewed by Heidi Greco
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I suspect that most adults in British Columbia are aware of the concept of generational trauma. The 21st century has brought to light so many of the effects of the Indian Act, especially the horrific accounts of life in residential schools.
The authors of this book cast a different and very personal light on another kind of generational trauma – that of being offspring of survivors of the Shoah, what most of us know as the Holocaust. In case we need reminding, this saw the purposeful extermination of some 6 million human beings, most of whom were killed simply for being Jewish.
As the primary editor Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman explains in the book’s preface, the writings here took root as the result of meetings of the Vancouver Second-Generation (2G) Group. All of the twelve writers represented here are the offspring of Holocaust survivors (or, in one instance, a survivor himself). Ross-Grayman was fortunate to connect with Wendy Bancroft, “a trained instructor in Guided Biography (the GAB Method)” who facilitated themed workshops that led writers to finding and sharing their individual experiences which frequently turned out to be ones that were commonly shared.
Ross-Grayman explains further: “What began as a six-week course for six of us grew to a two-year writing project for twelve participants.” Then, with some nudging from Wendy Bancroft, this anthology took shape.
Each contributor is introduced with a photo and a brief biographical note – something I wish more anthology editors would decide to do. I like being able to establish some familiarity with the person writing the account, especially when their words are as personal as these entries are.
Following the bio notes, each writer shares a report on who their parents were and where the family lived (often more than one location in efforts to stay ahead of widespread arrests). Sadly, these reports often include details of how and where they died. The lists of lost aunties, uncles, grandparents, and cousins are heartbreaking. Many entries include family photos; too many of these illustrate how over half an extended family was gassed, or starved, or worked to death.
But beyond the heartbreaking facts, there is respect and there is love. After giving us background, each writer presents a piece of creative writing that elaborates or responds to what occurred. Although most of these reactive pieces are prose, quite a few poems echo through these pages, often with expressions of hope, as in these lines from visual artist Olga Campbell:
I will open a curtain
to shine a light
on the darkness of fears.
There are many commonalities among these children of survivors. Often, these are feelings of guilt or inadequacy. Sometimes these seem to be simply a reflection of their parents’ own similar feelings. Many of the writers mention feeling that nothing they could do was ever good enough, that they couldn’t live up to fulfilling all that their parents expected of them – and because these parental expectations were often unspoken, the fact that weren’t specified made them nearly impossible to achieve.
Many of them suffer from symptoms associated with deep depression – not only sadness and anxiety, but physical ailments ranging from frequent attacks of nausea or headaches. But as one of these survivors – again, Olga Campbell – relates, she heard a report on the car radio that left her having to pull over to take in all that she was hearing, as it was news that finally made sense, that offered an explanation for the feelings she’d felt all her life. The voice was explaining “that the trauma of the Holocaust can be passed on genetically from one generation to the next for up to three generations.” Campbell goes on to express relief of a sort over learning that the problem wasn’t “something wrong” with her, saying: “Until that moment, I had no idea that there was a name for these feelings and that other people carried them.”
Marianne Rev’s story takes her generational trauma back even further, well before the time of Hitler, as one of her father’s earliest memories is of being awakened by his parents “in the middle of a late autumn night in 1919, to escape a pogrom in their village of Tömörkény, Hungary.” Then, in the 1940s, after marrying and living a somewhat reasonable-sounding life, János was one of many who were rounded up to work in slave labour units. It was only his skills as a carpenter that saved him from the fate of so many others who were forced to become “…human minesweepers. When a Jew exploded, a land mine was located.”
At almost the same time, his wife Faygi and her family, who had remained in their home town, were “…deported by cattle car to Auschwitz. Faygi’s parents were gassed upon arrival.” Young Faygi was more fortunate, as she, along with two of her sisters, survived. Once the camp they were in was liberated, she walked for two months to get to the town where she hoped to find her husband. Fortunately, she did find him, though even that held its own complications. For one thing, all of their belongings and property had been seized by others. Even worse, their huge extended families were mostly gone.
One of the authors, Fran Alexander, has a somewhat different story to tell, as her parents never spoke of their years during the Holocaust. She has had to build their story based on snippets she picked up over the years, and apologizes for the fact that there are gaps in her narrative. What she does know is that her mother, being fair-haired with blue eyes, managed to gain papers for a new identity, one that saw her wearing a cross and attending Mass while she was in the employ of a Polish Catholic family in Warsaw. While there she had to tolerate visits from the local priest who “…routinely joined the family for dinner, toasting, ‘Death to the Jews’ at the onset of each meal.” When she learned that thousands of Jews in the Łódź Ghetto, where she’d left her family, had been massacred, “she ran to the streets of Warsaw frantically searching for the armed Nazi soldier who patrolled the streets. Once she found him, she confessed she was Jewish, pleading with him to shoot her, to kill her. He jeered at her and walked away.” This led her to reveal her identity to others, and fortunately, she was protected, though it sounds as though she remained filled with guilt all her life.
The contributors’ families have their origins all over Central Europe. They come from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Germany, even Turkey. Such diversity only illustrates the depth and range of the Nazis’ reign of terror over Jews.
Yet despite the dreadful accounts of hardship and suffering, there are bright memories along with lovely photos from weddings or picnics. These certainly serve as reminders of the importance of family and the strong bonds of love.
Those values, I believe are what constitute the true soul of this book – that a group of people could come together, and give each other the strength to write out the truth of their histories so that they can be shared.
An extensive bibliography is included, as is a very thorough glossary with terms and translations that are helpful to those of us unfamiliar with the details of Jewish tradition.
This is a book that should be shared widely, because when we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.
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Heidi Greco lives in Surrey, where some would contend she can often still be found to be tilting at windmills. [Editor’s note: Heidi Greco has recently reviewed books by Katie Welch, Jan DeGrass, Stein, Peat, and Adalian, Deirdre Simon Dore, M.A.C. Farrant, and Michael Maitland for The British Columbia Review. Three of her books have also been reviewed here: Glorious Birds, From the Heart of it All, and Practical Anxiety.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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