Surviving: How Religious Holocaust Survivors Cope with their Trauma

Abstract:

Based on an in-depth study of four survivor interviews, this article traces the ways in which a traditional Jewish upbringing contributes toward fostering the development of a personality type that is able to mobilize specific coping mechanisms and to marshall a special resilience when a person is faced with severe persecution. It also looks at how these religious coping mechanisms and strategies hold up after the Holocaust and, most acutely, when these survivors are faced with the challenges of old age. Recommendations are given to helping professionals on how to provide supportive interventions to aging religious Holocaust survivors.