ABSTRACT
On a New York street, a group of newly arrived Jewish immigrants shuffled along. Their distressing appearance spoke of the heavy burden of suffering they were carrying, a product of the persecution they had suffered where they came from. Emigration involves a massive loss to which the psyche responds by setting in motion a process of mourning. Those who emigrated from the shtetl were at a disadvantage, in that the changes were very great. The human psyche is relatively capable of tolerating situations of change, even when they are painful. The defence mechanisms that the psyche sets in motion in traumatic situations like this one, when psychic pain at what has been lost and fear of everything new play a major role, generally fail, so that the psychic pain recurs. Nostalgia is perhaps the most easily detectable feeling that expresses this psychic pain.
