Table 3 Model for transgenerational transmission: experience of trauma and resilience patterns

1. WORKING OVER (by survivors)

Inability to work over:

Psychical working over ability intact:

· psychopathological disorders

· personal narratives

· somatic symptoms

· documentary records

· cultural rituals

· collective memory

· defense of universal values

2. COMMUNICATION (from survivors to their offspring)

· indirect communication

· open, loving, everyday communications

· fragmented discourse

· silence, secrets, the unsaid

· use of humor as a symbolic resource

3. REPERCUSSIONS (in the lives of survivors’ offspring)

· fear of being identified by external indicators

· imaginary resources

· artistic creation

· psychical deterritorialization

· appropriation of parental resilience patterns

· experiences of guilt, victimization and submission

· presentification of parental trauma

· field visits and search for knowledge of the Holocaust

· terrifying worldview

· collective bonding and social support

· universal values and social and political activism