Word: fenigstein
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...offspring as a final triumph over Hitler and antiSemitism. But for the child, it can mean an overwhelming pressure to compensate for dead relatives and justify the parents' lives. "Some of these children don't feel they have a right to be happy," says Toronto Psychiatrist Henry Fenigstein, a camp survivor himself. "The child begins to feel that whether the parent says it or not, he or she must vindicate all the suffering." And since survivors' children are usually namesakes for Holocaust victims killed in their prime, says Robin Moss, a coordinator for survivor groups...
Despite all these burdens, says Fenigstein, survivors' children are not inevitably victims of their parents' trauma. Says he: "Plenty of children managed to cope on their own, or they went for help." Several years ago, Fenigstein started "Holocaust workshops"-group therapy that seems to benefit most of the survivors and survivors' children who attend. Children with enough inner strength do not copy their parents, he says. "When there's a knock on the door, which reminds parents of a traumatic experience in the war when the Nazis came, this child doesn't react with anxiety...
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