How do we use the vast amount of information we have gleaned from our interviews to develop a framework that helps us understand and counteract the effects of massive trauma on children? So far, while the lessons of the Holocaust have only been marginally integrated into the larger study of childhood trauma, they have the potential to make a significant contribution to the field. They have already been shared with psychologists and scholars working with child survivors of Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. ISOPC’s co-director, Dr. Eva Fogelman has worked directly with Native Americans and Armenians.

Researchers who worked with Cambodian child survivors in the United States noted that too much information on the impact of massive trauma on children is anecdotal or based on clinical cases. ISOPC makes real studies possible because of the wealth of material they have available to them from child survivors who were not seeking treatment.

The photo above is of the surviving children of the Mannheimer family from Piestany, Slovakia.
Photo: Courtesy Judith Alter Kallman, author of A Candle in the Heart.