ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a complete nuclear survivor family’s entire post-Holocaust life and their struggle with their massive psychic trauma, which would never have become available for study as clinical material. As the survivor is held in awe, what tends to be overlooked is that they entered the nightmare world of the Holocaust as ordinary human beings and were forced to endure extraordinary events. Survivor guilt does not fit classical theory which maintains that the creation of neurotic guilt is related to the fulfilment or feared fulfilment of instinctual impulses or infantile unconscious wishes. Survivor guilt has persisted primarily because survivors are unable to grieve and mourn their losses successfully. Self-blame in the face of powerlessness is a commonly observed phenomenon. Self-blame is the response to memories of primal powerlessness, which will cause guilt at the level of the superego and ego ideal, and remembered actions or humiliations will be found to become its vehicle.
