Inter-Generational Trauma

Intergenerational Trauma: Unpacking the Enduring Impact and Path to Healing

“The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity.”
– Alan Lew

In recent years, the word trauma has entered the mainstream—widely discussed, sometimes overused, and often misunderstood. Yet beneath the buzz lies a growing awareness of its real and lasting effects. Trauma refers to experiences that cause deep psychological distress or harm—such as physical or sexual abuse, emotional neglect, or exposure to violence. It can manifest in anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addiction, and a range of physical and emotional symptoms. As awareness has grown, so too has the number of people seeking treatment, and mental health professionals have become more adept at identifying and addressing trauma-related conditions.

Intergenerational Trauma—also known as Transgenerational or Inherited Trauma—refers to the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next. This inheritance is not just genetic or biological; it moves through parenting, unspoken fears, family dynamics, and cultural memory. It can be the shadow of war, genocide, slavery, forced displacement, or systemic oppression—passed down through behaviors, silence, or even the stories that are never told. Its imprint reaches far beyond those who directly endured the original trauma, often shaping the lives of their children and grandchildren in quiet, pervasive ways.

This essay explores the wide-reaching effects of Intergenerational Trauma, with particular attention to the legacy of the Holocaust and its impact on survivors’ descendants. Along the way, I’ll share personal reflections—experiences shaped by inherited memory, silence, and resilience. I’ve returned to this piece many times over the years, revising and refining it. It remains a work in progress—just as my understanding of this complex legacy continues to evolve.

Shame: The Cunning Devil That Took Over My Life

A good place to begin is with an exchange I had with a close friend—someone whose family background echoes my own. At one point, he said with conviction, “With the Holocaust, I’m done!”
I paused.
My inner response was immediate: “You may be done with the Holocaust—but is the Holocaust done with you?”

For years, I didn’t have the language to name what was happening inside me. I didn’t realize how deeply the residue of Intergenerational Trauma had settled in my psyche. Then, out of nowhere, that internal whisper would rise: “Something’s wrong with you.”
It took me a long time to recognize that voice for what it was—shame.

And let me tell you, shame is a cunning little devil. It’s stealthy. It doesn’t barge in with banners; it seeps in quietly, takes up residence, and starts rearranging the furniture in your life without asking.

I could give you endless examples. The sick feeling after opening up to someone, realizing I’d shared too much. The times I was paralyzed by the past, unable to let go. Even talking about shame made me feel ashamed. And then there’s the big stuff: feeling ashamed of my own heritage—like I’m somehow dragging around the burden of a persecuted people, as if their pain lives in my DNA. And anger—God forbid I get angry. That, too, became a source of shame. I’d learned to suppress it, to swallow it, to absorb whatever life hurled at me like a good soldier.

Whenever I tried to put these feelings into words, I was often misunderstood. That only made it worse. It’s hard enough to talk about shame; it’s even harder when your truth doesn’t land, when people reduce it or confuse it with something else.

Many would ask, “Isn’t that just guilt?” But as I’ve learned—and as I often quote from John Bradshaw, whose work has guided me for decades—there’s a profound difference:

“Guilt implies I’ve done something wrong; shame suggests there’s something wrong with me. Guilt says I made a mistake; shame whispers, I am the mistake.”

That distinction helped me start to see things more clearly. Guilt is about behavior. Shame is about identity. And when shame is inherited—passed down silently through generations—it can become one of the most insidious expressions of Intergenerational Trauma. It lives in the body. It distorts self-worth. It whispers lies that sound like truth.

Embracing the Darkness: Breaking the Silence

There came a moment when I knew—deep in my bones—that I couldn’t keep living the same way. Enough was enough. But that realization brought new questions:
How do I confront the weight I’ve been carrying? How do I embrace my full story—my past, my anger, and all the pieces that make me who I am?

Carl Jung once wrote:

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid confronting their own souls. Enlightenment does not come from imagining figures of light, but from acknowledging and accepting the darkness within ourselves.”

It wasn’t until I summoned the courage to face my shame directly—what Jung would call the shadow—that I began to see even a sliver of light. That glimmer marked the start of something new: the possibility of freedom.

To get there, I had to confront a part of myself I had long avoided: the “little Jew” within me. The helpless one. The frightened, mistreated, exiled one. The one I had disowned in order to survive.
Finding compassion for him—rather than shame or judgment—was a vital turning point. It was the first real gesture of self-acceptance.

This act of reckoning also became a bridge back to my father.
He had always been emotionally sealed off, his pain buried beneath a heavy silence. Yet even as a child, I could feel his suffering. It clung to the air around him—unspoken, but palpable.
His silence didn’t protect me from his agony; it passed it on.

Facing my own shadow helped me see his. And in that shared darkness, I began to make peace—not just with him, but with the legacy we both carried.

Beyond Witnessing: Remembering the Holocaust Through Art

In the beautifully written essay “A Legacy of Survival” published in Narratively, author Marisa Berman reflects on the lingering echoes of trauma through the lens of art and memory. She begins with these words:

“I did not witness the most important events of my life,” says artist David Gev. “They happened before I was born, yet their memory persists. How does one take on the memories of another individual, let alone the collective memory of millions?”

I was born in Be’er-Sheva, Israel, in 1960. My father, Baruch Ginzberg, had already lived several lifetimes by then—having survived four different Nazi concentration camps. Later, he served as a colonel in the Israeli Army, a man of discipline and silence. He rarely spoke of what he endured. His silence was protective, a shield. But like many second-generation survivors, I absorbed the pain that was never named.

Berman continues:

“Gev was born in Be’er-Sheva, Israel, in 1960. His father, Baruch Ginzberg, was a colonel in the Israeli Army, a post he took up after surviving four different concentration camps during the Holocaust. Ginzberg spoke little of his experience to David or his younger son Israel in hopes of protecting them from the suffering he endured. In his artwork, Gev returns repeatedly to the view he imagines his father had through the slats in the cattle cars that transported him to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau—each ride filled with fear, starvation, and death.”

Even though I never saw those landscapes, I carry them. I inherited them not through photographs or archives, but through fragments of stories, through silence, and through the emotional residue that hovered over our home. In my art, I return again and again to that imagined view—from inside the train, through the slats, into the unknown.

“Artist David Gev’s work is meant to evoke the European landscape as seen from inside a train car on its way to a concentration camp. Gev did not directly experience this suffering, nor did he himself look out from the trains or feel the pains of hunger and cold, but still, he witnessed these things through pieces of stories told to him by his father. Without knowing all that occurred, he was forced to formulate images in his mind of what his father might have seen.”
(Berman, 2013)

This is what it means to live with Intergenerational Trauma: to feel the cold of a winter you never walked through, to grieve events you didn’t survive but somehow remember. Through art, I try to give shape to these inherited memories—not as an act of closure, but as a way of witnessing what was passed down without words.

Attachment Theory and Intergenerational Trauma: The Search for Connection

This section is intentionally written in third person. When psychological analysis touches on one’s deepest emotional structure, it feels more authentic—and more responsible—to let the insight come through voices of authority. One such voice is Professor C. Fred Alford, a distinguished scholar in trauma studies, ethics, and political psychology. His work has significantly contributed to our understanding of the psychological impact of the Holocaust on both survivors and their descendants.

In his book Trans-generational Trauma and the Other, Alford reflects on the visual language of trauma and memory in Gev’s artwork:

“As one looks at photographs of glass art by Gev, one is surprised by how pretty the abstract scenes are. If one did not know what they represent, one would be hard-pressed to guess that they represent horror.”

Alford captures a central paradox: that beauty and horror can occupy the same space. For second-generation survivors like Gev, who grew up in households shaped by silence, imagination often became a bridge. “We survive,” Alford observes, “by forming relationships and adapting to the minds of others.” The absence of shared stories about trauma left children to intuit and imagine what was unspeakable. In doing so, they sought emotional connection—longing not just to understand their parents’ suffering, but to be let into it.

Despite their deep love, many Holocaust survivors were unable to share their memories with their children. This silence—though protective in intent—often created a feeling of emotional absence. For children, it could feel as if part of the parent was unreachable. The search for connection with a parent’s inner world, especially one shaped by trauma, often becomes a defining emotional journey.

In Gev’s case, art became a vehicle not for commemoration, but for personal integration. His work is not a monument to the Holocaust but a meditation on inherited pain and the longing to make sense of it. Like many children of survivors, he sought not only to grasp what had happened—but to feel it, and in some way, transform it.

Pioneering psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott once described the experience of emotional disconnection as “being dropped by the mother’s mind.” When parents are unable to hold their child’s emotional life in mind—due to their own unprocessed trauma—it leaves the child uncontained and alone.

Attachment theorists Erik Hesse and Mary Main explain that traumatized parents often re-experience elements of their trauma during parenting. This can result in moments of withdrawal, confusion, or detachment. The child, unable to interpret the parent’s distress, may internalize it—blaming themselves, or attempting to care for the parent in a premature reversal of roles. This role-reversal, common in families shaped by trauma, is a classic marker of ambivalent or disorganized attachment.

It may seem paradoxical: to feel abandoned not by absence, but by silence. Yet for many second-generation survivors, that is the reality. The Holocaust was present, but unspoken. Its shadow filled the house, even when its stories did not.

The search for connection and emotional safety does not end in childhood. It continues through adulthood—often manifesting in our relationships, our creativity, our inner monologues. Recognizing the role of attachment, and how trauma can silently shape it, is a first step toward healing. By bringing these dynamics into awareness, we begin to reconnect—with ourselves, our parents, and the deeper stories we carry.

Lessons Learned from My Life’s Journey

Reflecting on my journey through Intergenerational Trauma, I see not just the weight I’ve carried, but the growth it has demanded of me. Along the way, I’ve cultivated certain strengths—resilience, emotional insight, a capacity for compassion—that weren’t handed down, but earned. These traits have become my survival tools, my compass, and my creative fuel. And while the path has often felt solitary, I know now that every step toward healing has been a conscious choice—to break the cycle, to alchemize pain into strength, and to live more fully.

We often encounter self-help books filled with numbered lists and catchy takeaways—“7 Secrets to Emotional Freedom” or “5 Steps to Transform Your Life.” These formats can be useful. They simplify the complex. But healing is rarely linear, and the wisdom I’ve gathered hasn’t come neatly packaged.

Still, I offer this personal roster of lessons—not as universal truths, but as insights earned through my own battles, doubts, revelations, and returns. They are reminders, mile markers, and sometimes, quiet companions on the road forward.

Finding My Voice: The Healing Power of Storytelling

I carry a responsibility—to speak my truth, to bring it to the surface, to find the right words and let them be heard. For years, like my father, I remained silent. I believed that burying the past was the proper path—that keeping it hidden was a form of strength. What I didn’t understand then was that he, too, may have been afraid that speaking it aloud would pull him into a bottomless pit from which he might never return.

It’s only with time, and the gentle encouragement of others, that I’ve given myself permission to enter those fragile, shadowed places—the vulnerable, the concealed, the painful. I’ve learned that silence may protect us in the short term, but in the long run, it isolates. It hardens.

Now, I speak not only for myself, but for the sake of connection—for the possibility of healing. In exploring these inner chambers, I begin to understand the threads that bind me to my past and present, to those who came before me, and to the larger story of which I am a part.

Storytelling is not just a form of expression. It’s an act of survival. It’s how we bear witness. It’s how we make sense of what was never explained, and how we begin to piece together the fragmented inheritance left behind. In finding my voice, I’ve begun to reclaim something essential—not just from history, but from myself.

From Isolation to Companionship: The Power of Shared Trauma

At a certain point in my journey, I found myself among a group of individuals—both men and women—who offered something I didn’t even realize I needed: a safe space to share my story in all its rawness, contradictions, and mysterious day-to-day echoes. In their presence, I didn’t have to explain or defend the things I carried. They just knew.

These were people who, like me, are children of Holocaust survivors. That common thread created an invisible bond—one stitched together not only by pain but by understanding. Among them, I could speak freely, even joke about things most would find too dark or inappropriate. Our shared history gave those jokes a strange kind of dignity. They weren’t about making light of suffering—they were about making meaning, finding breath amid suffocation.

Having these friendships has been an anchor. These are the people who understand when I say I’m “having trouble deciding between left or right,” and they don’t flinch or offer logistical advice. They recognize it instantly for what it is—a reference to the selection process at the train stations of the camps. A moment of historical horror echoing through a present-day dilemma. They understand that sometimes, a simple choice can carry the weight of generations.

In these moments, I’m not alone. The isolation that once felt like a birthright has begun to dissolve, replaced by something softer: companionship rooted in shared knowing. It’s in that space—between tragedy and tenderness—that real healing begins.

Surrendering to Acceptance: Overcoming Pride and Ego

The process of acceptance reminds me of that old joke: How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

Each “bite”—each moment of surrender—has taught me to create space for the uncomfortable emotions, urges, and sensations I once tried to outrun. Instead of resisting them or trying to push them away, I’ve discovered that acceptance softens their grip. It conserves energy. It allows me to move forward with less struggle.

I remember a particularly painful breakup that left me in a state of near-constant anxiety. My reflex was to fight the feeling—to push it down, distract myself, pretend it wasn’t there. But the more I resisted, the more it consumed me. One day, in the middle of a full-blown anxiety attack, I called a friend. Calmly, he told me to lie down, breathe, and stop trying to do anything. “Let the thoughts come,” he said. “Let them pass through you. Don’t engage. Just let them be.”

Within minutes, something shifted. The storm passed. That moment left a deep impression on me, and I’ve returned to it many times since. It taught me that healing doesn’t always come through effort. Sometimes it comes through yielding.

But I’ll be honest—acceptance has been the hardest lesson of all. I was raised to fight. Conditioned to endure. I mistook surrender for weakness and saw letting go as a kind of defeat. My pride and ego were loud. They said: You must overcome. They didn’t know how to say: You can let this be.

It wasn’t until I hit bottom—emotionally, spiritually—that I realized fighting wasn’t working. I wasn’t losing the battle. I was trapped in it. Only then did it become clear: surrender isn’t giving up. It’s opening up. And acceptance, paradoxically, became the only way through.

From Silence to Empathy: A Personal Reflection on Active Listening

As I’ve listened to others share their life stories—often raw, vulnerable, and unfiltered—I’ve been struck by a quiet revelation: sometimes, they tell my story better than I can. There’s something profoundly healing in hearing your own unspoken truths reflected back through another’s voice. It reminds me that we’re not as alone as we think.

Through this process of active listening, I’ve learned to cultivate empathy—not as an abstract ideal, but as a practice. It means sitting with someone else’s pain without needing to fix it, interpret it, or steer it back to your own. It’s about presence. And in many ways, empathy is closely aligned with what I’ve come to understand through Mindful Self-Compassion—a practice that teaches us how to relate to our own suffering with gentleness and awareness.

That practice involves three simple but powerful steps:

1. Acknowledge the pain without resistance.
2. Recognize that suffering is a shared human experience.
3. Offer yourself kindness rather than criticism.

This kind of compassion, turned both outward and inward, has transformed the way I listen—to others and to myself.

One memory stands out. I was in my early twenties, driving with my father through the mountains. A herd of sheep crossed the road in front of us. Out of nowhere, he said, “That’s how we walked to the gas chamber.”

His words landed like a thunderclap—unexpected, brutal, and filled with the weight of something he had rarely, if ever, expressed. It was the first time he gave me a glimpse into the depth of his shame and survivor’s guilt. I looked at him, stunned, but said nothing. I was lost in my own thoughts, emotionally unprepared to receive the gravity of his truth.

Looking back, I wish I had been more open-hearted. More attuned to his pain. I wish I had met his story with the empathy it deserved. At the time, I was still caught in my own survival mode—closed off, armored. I didn’t yet have the tools that my children, now in their twenties, seem to access so naturally: emotional awareness, presence, and the courage to feel without shutting down.

That moment lingers—not as regret, but as a lesson. A reminder of how vital it is to listen. To witness. To be there when someone finally dares to speak their truth.

A Legacy of Resilience: How My Father’s Story Inspires Me

Resilience, like trauma, can be passed down through generations. My father’s stories of endurance and defiance in the face of unimaginable horror have left an indelible mark on me. His capacity to survive—mentally, emotionally, physically—shaped not only my understanding of strength but also my own ability to confront life’s challenges.

During an interview with Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, my father said that “only luck” had spared him. But I’ve heard his stories. I know better. What he called luck, I see as relentless willpower, cunning, and courage—qualities that defined his journey through one of history’s darkest chapters.

At just 14 years old, imprisoned in his first concentration camp, he bartered for food in secret—an act punishable by death. Later, while working in an oil refinery near Birkenau, he found a way to insulate himself against the brutal cold, using an empty cement bag tucked beneath his striped prisoner’s uniform. These weren’t acts of luck. They were acts of quiet rebellion. Of resilience.

One of the most haunting stories I carry is from the Death March. As Soviet forces approached, the Nazis forced prisoners to march for miles through deep snow. My father’s wooden shoes grew heavier with each step, snow clinging to the soles. But his father—my grandfather—warned him: “Don’t stop. They’ll shoot us if we stop.” Around them lay the frozen bodies of those who couldn’t go on. And still, they marched.

After surviving the march, they were transferred to Sachsenhausen, and then to the Messerschmitt aircraft factory near Dachau. On the way, they stopped briefly at Bergen-Belsen, which my father described as the most horrific place he had ever seen. Starvation was everywhere. The dead lay in piles. In a moment of desperation, someone tried to wrest a loaf of bread from his hands. My father defended himself with a small knife. That detail has always stayed with me—not just because he had the courage to resist, but because he had the will to survive.

He and his father endured six brutal years together: four concentration camps, forced labor, cattle trains, the Death March. But just two weeks before Dachau was liberated by the American Army, they were separated. They never saw each other again.

After the war, my father didn’t collapse. He rebuilt. He joined the Israeli Army, eventually rising to lead food logistics for the IDF. He served until after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, then retired. He raised a family. He endured the devastating loss of a child. And still, he carried on.

If that’s not resilience, I don’t know what is.

Growing up in the shadow of his story, I absorbed it not as a tale of despair, but as a blueprint for perseverance. When I face hardship, I draw on the strength he lived and breathed. Compared to what he endured, my challenges feel small—but my determination to meet them, fully and honestly, is something I inherited from him.

His story lives in me—not as a burden, but as a source of strength.

Finding Peace Beyond Words: The Unifying Force of Faith

Faith in a higher power—a force that threads the universe together—has become an eternal spring of hope, strength, and quiet confidence in my life. It isn’t tied to dogma or doctrine, but to something deeper and more spacious. A sense of belonging to something vast, unseen, and fundamentally whole.

At times, this faith feels like arriving at the place Rumi once described:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

When my spirit touches that field—when I allow myself to lie down in that grass—something shifts. The noise quiets. The need for words dissolves. I don’t have to explain myself, prove myself, or carry the burden of inherited sorrow. In that space, I simply am.

And the world becomes too full for words.

It’s there, in that stillness, that I find peace—not by forgetting the past, but by resting alongside it. Not by denying my story, but by recognizing that it, too, belongs to the sacred whole.

Optimism as a Choice

I strive to seek out the affirmative in all situations—choosing to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. But make no mistake: this isn’t my natural inclination. It’s a choice I have to make, consciously and repeatedly.

Optimism, for me, isn’t a reflex. It’s a discipline.

Like contentment, it requires intention—a deliberate shifting of perspective, especially on days when the world feels heavy or uncertain. I don’t always succeed. There are moments when the weight of doubt or fatigue pulls me off course. But still, I return to the effort. I keep choosing.

Because in the face of inherited sorrow and present-day struggle, choosing optimism is its own quiet act of resilience.

Art as a Vehicle for Transformation: Finding Hope in the Darkness

As an artist, I use my craft not only to express emotion but to make sense of it—to process, to reflect, and to communicate what words often fail to capture. Through both the act of creating and the experience of viewing art, I tap into a space of awe and mystery—a place where something spiritual begins to unfold.

While my work may appear abstract at first glance, it always carries a story beneath the surface. Each piece is infused with a deep, sometimes unspoken, desire to bear witness. To name the unnameable. I believe that by confronting the darkest aspects of our shared history, we create space for healing—and perhaps, help prevent the repetition of those horrors.

At the heart of my work lies a simple but radical goal: to transform pain into beauty.

For years, I’ve explored this intention through hot glass and other materials, crafting two-dimensional sculptural works that speak to trauma, memory, and survival. One of my most personally meaningful bodies of work is titled The Train from Auschwitz – A Journey from Shame to Self-Realization. These pieces evoke the landscape as seen from within a train car bound for the concentration camps. The series is not about illustrating horror, but about reclaiming beauty in the midst of it—about the courage to look out from those slats and still see sky, trees, motion.

Despite the darkness these subjects carry, I remain committed to finding moments of light. My art reflects that search—not to erase the past, but to illuminate the possibility of hope within it.

➤ In my blog post, Healing Trauma Through Art: The Transformative Power of Art, I share more about this creative process—how it emerged, how it continues to evolve, and how it has become an essential part of my own healing.

The Gift of Gratitude: A Pathway to Success and Happiness

Gratitude is the fountainhead of all virtues. It is both a grounding practice and a transformative force. Over time, I’ve come to understand that cultivating gratitude has profoundly impacted my life—not just as an emotional response, but as a daily orientation toward the world.

When I focus on the present moment and consciously appreciate its blessings—no matter how small—I unlock a door to abundance. Gratitude shifts my attention away from what’s missing and toward what is already here. That shift has been a quiet but powerful key to a more joyful, successful, and fulfilling life.

It’s not about blind positivity. It’s about presence. About choosing to see what is working, what is beautiful, and what can still be cherished—even in the midst of pain.

Holocaust Survivors and Forgiveness: A Father–Son Story

In any essay dedicated to a Holocaust survivor, the question of forgiveness inevitably arises. Some may assume it’s about forgiving the Nazis—but that’s not what this is about. Personally, I side with Elie Wiesel, who once said:

“Who am I to forgive? I am not God. No, I cannot forgive.”

For me, forgiveness has taken a different shape. It has meant making amends with my father—and with myself—for the things I couldn’t see, the things I didn’t understand until much later in life.

My father loved soccer. English Premier League games were his escape, and he had a soft spot for Arsenal—while I leaned more toward Chelsea. Now and then, I’d sit beside him to watch a match, hoping the moment might lead to one of those meaningful father–son conversations I longed for. But the words never came. We sat there in silence, side by side in the living room. And even in his presence, I often felt his absence. It hurt.

Years later, I visited his grave. I spoke to him—not expecting a response, but needing to unburden my heart. I made peace with my expectations, with my own inability to be more present, more appreciative of who he was. It took time and experience to understand that unrealistic expectations often breed resentment—and that true peace comes from accepting what is, not what could have been.

These days, when I watch a soccer game, I imagine him sitting in a comfortable chair somewhere above, still silent, still watching. And this time, it doesn’t hurt.
This time, it’s enough.

In recognizing and working through Intergenerational Trauma, we find space for these moments—forgiveness not as a grand gesture, but as a quiet reconciliation. A turning inward. A softening.

This essay is dedicated to my father,
Baruch Ginzberg (1925–2007)

September 2020