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Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma

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Anti-Semitism and Psychiatry

Abstract

There is a vast psychiatric literature on each of the three sections of this chapter – anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Psychiatry has always been interested in the topic of in-groups and out-groups, in the link between violence and psychopathology, and in the consequences that stem from trauma. The psychiatric field, from its inception, has been preoccupied with weighing nature against nurture, with assessing the risks and results of human action. This chapter focuses on one community’s experience with anti-Semitism and the Holocaust because particularities are often easier to understand than larger sweeps of history. The community I describe was my community, which makes it special to me. Learning about the events that took place there over the last 200 years has opened my eyes to aspects of anti-Semitism of which I was not previously aware. I have learned that discrimination and stereotyping, no matter how irrational, rise to the surface in times of tension and adversity. I have learned that anyone can become an anti-Semite, discriminating not only against Jews but against people of all Semitic backgrounds, often at the instigation of third parties. I have also learned how trauma is transmitted from generation to generation so that the harms human beings inflict on each other live long after the traumatic events themselves are forgotten.

It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.

—Primo Levi

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Mary V. Seeman

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  1. Mary V. Seeman
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Correspondence to Mary V. Seeman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Private Practice and Retired Tenured Professor of Psychiatry Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    H. Steven Moffic

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    John R. Peteet

  3. South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

    Ahmed Hankir

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Mary V. Seeman

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Seeman, M.V. (2020). Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma. In: Moffic, H., Peteet, J., Hankir, A., Seeman, M. (eds) Anti-Semitism and Psychiatry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37745-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37745-8_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37744-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37745-8

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