ABSTRACT
Postmemory refers to traumatic memories of Holocaust events burned into the souls of the survivors. These memories are so traumatic, intangible, and unthinkable that the only way to “continue living” in light of them is by trying to fully erase and conceal them, without representing them in words. Such massive traumas don’t dissipate, even when unspoken. They penetrate via intergenerational transfer and settle in the deepest roots of the next generations’ beings, causing the latter to act out their parent’s trauma. Here, I present the case of a post-traumatic Holocaust survivor who was separated from his family between the ages of 6 and 11. This long separation was traumatic for him. At age 11, he was reunited with his mother and they lived together until she died. However, they failed to go through a processing process. In this paper, I will describe the patient’s therapeutic journey and processing of multiple layers of trauma: his own traumatic experiences, and his mother’s, which he absorbed through intergenerational transfer. As a result of processing the trauma, the patient evidently began rethinking his past instead of reliving it, and a vital desire emerged in him to connect with his family.
