August 23 marks the anniversary of the signing of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact – the secret agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War, the Holocaust, the gulags, and decades of repression and division across Europe. This year's edition of the Remember. August 23 campaign, organised by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, encourages reflection on how the crimes of totalitarian regimes continue to reverberate across generations.
To explore the psychological and societal legacy of mass violence, we interviewed Dr Yael Danieli – a world-renowned clinical psychologist, traumato¬logist and psychohistorian – whose pioneering work with Holocaust survivors and their families has transformed how we understand trauma, memory and healing.
ENRS, Magdalena Żelazowska: What exactly is intergenerational trauma? Is it just a metaphor – or is it a real, measurable psychological condition?
Intergenerational trauma is not just a metaphor – it is a measurable, lived reality. In my work, I refer to its consequences as Reparative Adaptational Impacts, or RIFEs. These are patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion that children – and even grandchildren – of trauma survivors unconsciously adopt in response to the emotional atmosphere shaped by their parents’ or grandparents’ trauma.
This process is shaped by several interwoven elements: the original trauma itself, what I call broken generational continuities, the conspiracy of silence that often follows massive trauma, and the adaptational styles that survivors develop – whether as victims, as emotionally disengaged, or as fighters striving for meaning and justice. The child is born into that world, and adapts to it. That adaptation, in turn, becomes part of their identity.
In my research, I’ve found that these impacts often show up as an intense need to protect others, chronic self-doubt, emotional constriction, over-identification with ancestral trauma, or a dependency that binds them tightly to the family system. Beneath all of it is often a profound, mostly unconscious, drive to repair – to heal not only for their parents, but also for themselves, and even for the world.
These aren’t vague tendencies – they are concrete, observable, and they correlate with clinical symptoms: anxiety, depression, PTSD. More importantly, they shape how people live – how they see themselves, relate to others and navigate their everyday world.
There is also a biological dimension, as research by scholars like Zahava Solomon and Amit Shrira has shown – indicating that children of survivors may carry a latent vulnerability to future trauma. That’s why we created tools like the Danieli Inventory, which assesses both the survivors’ adaptational styles and the resulting impacts on their children – not just whether certain patterns are present, but how intensely they are experienced.
Intergenerational trauma is not just theory. It is real, researchable and treatable. And understanding it is essential if we are to help individuals and families reclaim meaning and healing after the most devastating of human experiences.
This year we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Is the transmission of trauma naturally coming to an end with time, or do we need to actively handle trauma for it to be healed? What are the mechanisms of intergenerational trauma’s transmission?
The adaptational styles of parents lie at the heart of how trauma is transmitted. In our studies, we found that when survivors – especially mothers, though not only – adopt what we call the victim adaptational style, their children are at significantly higher risk. The most severe impacts occur when both parents are survivors and both have internalised this style. In such cases, we’ve observed the most intense reparative adaptational impacts – or simply, the deepest psychological distress in their children.
Trauma doesn’t fade with time. If it remains unaddressed, it persists. The way survivors adapt – how they cope, raise children and make meaning of their experiences – becomes the vehicle of transmission. And when these styles remain stuck in what I call non-adaptation – meaning the trauma is neither integrated nor transformed – it is passed on. That’s why it’s essential for society, in the aftermath of mass trauma, to support survivors in moving beyond the victim identity, or at least in reducing its intensity. This helps not only the survivors but also protects future generations.
Unfortunately – and we must be brave enough to name this – in both the 20th and 21st centuries, the victim identity has sometimes been politicised or misused. Leaders, religious figures and cultural influencers have instrumentalised it to serve other purposes. But this kind of appropriation does not promote healing. On the contrary – it often reinforces the trauma and blocks survivors and their descendants from reclaiming their lives.
So, to answer your question: no, the transmission of trauma does not end on its own. Healing requires conscious, intentional work – on the individual, family and societal level. Survivors have the right to heal. And their children have the right to be raised by parents who are no longer defined by their wounds.
To what extent is intergenerational trauma a personal or family matter, and to what extent does it become a national, or even global, issue? Can we talk about post-traumatic societies or nations? And is addressing trauma on an individual level different from dealing with it on a societal scale?
Trauma doesn’t exist in a vacuum. While individuals and families suffer the consequences, it is often society or the state that creates the traumatic conditions in the first place. So healing isn’t just a private matter for families to deal with behind closed doors. In many cases, society must be involved – not only to support recovery, but to acknowledge its own responsibility in the trauma that occurred. Instead of viewing history as just a list of dates, names and events, psychohistory explores how history is lived – how it affects our thoughts, emotions, choices and convictions on a daily basis. It’s about how our past shapes our present and future, both individually and collectively.
To come back to your question: the traumatised family did not cause the trauma – it was inflicted upon them by society or by historical events, often political or systemic in nature. Therefore, healing must involve society as a whole.
How does trauma affect identity across generations? How should we understand this connection beyond the individual psyche?
When we think of identity – Who am I? – we need to understand it as a complex, layered system, shaped not only by biology or internal psychology, but by family, culture, society, spirituality, history, law, even politics and the environment. It’s all interconnected. I often picture this as an elevator shaft, moving vertically through past, present and future – our identity constantly navigating those layers.
But trauma breaks that flow. It ruptures the natural continuity of self. I like to use a painting by Fred Terna, a Holocaust survivor and dear friend, to illustrate that rupture – a deep break in the timeline of identity.
How does this silence affect both survivors and their children?
Survivors learn, often painfully, that the world doesn’t want to hear about their pain. Society prefers to celebrate victory, not tend to the wounds. And so, in my research, I identified 49 distinct ways in which people fail to listen. It’s profound. It’s not just absence – it’s betrayal. And this betrayal – the silence, the denial, the distancing – can be more damaging than the original trauma.
Survivors internalise this silence. They tell themselves: “I won’t speak. I want my children to be normal.” But what gets passed on is not healing, but shame, isolation, a sense of not belonging. And the children – they are born into this silence. Into this fractured continuity of identity. That’s why I speak of “trauma in the continuity of self”. Because it’s not only psychological. It’s multidimensional – biological, social, cultural, historical. And that’s why healing must be multidisciplinary and integrative. On the surface, survivors may look “okay” – maybe a bit scarred, but functioning. But beneath that, the wound remains open. And so, the trauma lives on – in them, and in the next generation.
In your model, how is trauma transmitted within families?
As I mentioned earlier, it all begins with the trauma – a rupture in the continuity of self – and a kind of psychological “fixity” in that rupture. That’s the starting point in the dimension of time. From there, the victim-survivor develops survival strategies, first during the trauma itself, and later – especially under the conspiracy of silence – these strategies evolve into adaptational styles. These adaptational styles then repeat and manifest in the next generation, becoming what I call repetitive adaptational impacts in the lives of the survivor’s children.
What are the main intergenerational patterns that emerge in families of trauma survivors, and how do they shape the emotional lives of their children?
Altogether, this dynamic – the trauma, the adaptations and their intergenerational echoes – forms the family history and emotional environment, all deeply embedded within the broader societal context. In what I call the Nam Style, we often see emotional isolation: parents are distant, there is little to no emotional expression, and an intolerance for weakness emerges, because vulnerability feels dangerous. This is accompanied by a conspiracy of silence, not only with the outside world but within the family itself, leaving children confused and emotionally disoriented, unable to understand the atmosphere they are growing up in.
The Fighter Style, on the other hand, is driven by values such as justice, identity and meaning. It is characterised by speaking out, preserving memory, and transforming trauma into purposeful action. Many survivor organisations – including yours, I would say – operate in this mode. They believe: We must talk about it, learn from it, and act.
Each style is different, though there may be some overlap. And all are shaped not only by the trauma itself, but by culture, context and collective values.
Can you describe how children of survivors internalise the trauma of their parents, even without directly experiencing it themselves?
The Adult Child Reparative Adaptational Impact – the way children of trauma survivors adapt as they grow up, often taking on emotional burdens that aren’t theirs.
First, there’s reparative protectiveness – a deep urge to protect and “repair” the parent, often from a very young age. Then comes insecurity about competence. Many of these adult children carry the feeling that they’re not capable, that every task is a test. Historically, this comes from being expected to help their parents at age three or four, and, of course, not being able to. That feeling of failure stays with them, even though it was never really theirs to carry.
There’s also defensive psychosocial constriction – a rigid emotional posture, a need for power and control, because softness or vulnerability feels unsafe. You’re not allowed to be dependent, not even briefly.
This sometimes manifests as obsessive focus on trauma, like the Holocaust – reading everything about it, trying to master it intellectually, as if that could undo it. But, as I sometimes tell them: even God cannot undo the Holocaust. That’s a heavy truth to carry.
Then there’s immature dependency. Because everything is tied up within the family system, leaving or creating emotional distance feels like betrayal. The child stays – emotionally, psychologically – because loyalty is everything, even if it’s painful.
All of this adds up to a profound emotional burden, a sense that there’s always more to do, more to repair, more to carry.
How does broken historical continuity contribute to trauma transmission beyond the family context? What does your research tell us about this broader rupture?
What we examined in our study was the impact of family history across four generations: the generation before the trauma, the generation that experienced the trauma, their children, and those children as future parents. We looked at the family milieu – how many survived, whether families held on to their religious or cultural beliefs, how identity was preserved or fragmented. All of these elements matter.
It’s not just about diagnoses or labels – it’s about how people live, how they make sense of life, how trauma and its echoes shape that sense across time.
Our model shows that family history and experience lead to post-trauma adaptational styles in parents, and these in turn generate repetitive adaptational impacts in their children. That part might be expected. But what we also found – and this is crucial – is that trauma doesn’t affect the child only indirectly through the family. It can have a direct impact. And that’s a pivotal finding in our understanding of intergenerational trauma.
In cases like the Holocaust, what enters the family is not only the silence or behaviours of survivors – it’s also what we call a broken generational linkage: the rupture of history itself.
And this isn’t just theory – it’s something children express in very concrete ways. For example, a child might say: “I know my family history only in bits and pieces.” There’s no coherent narrative of where they come from – just fragments here and there, disconnected.
And that disconnection isn’t only because the parents didn’t talk, or the child didn’t ask, or the family couldn’t bear to remember. It’s also because society itself silenced it. It shut it down. It didn’t want to know.
Another example that speaks to the depth of this loss: children of survivors often say they don’t really think of their grandparents as their grandparents. They think of them as their parents’ parents, abstractly – because they never actually had a grandparent. They never experienced what that relationship means. And that absence, that missing link, leaves a mark – a particular sense of rootlessness, of something never known but deeply felt.
So when we talk about intergenerational trauma, we have to go beyond the family. We need to recognise that trauma can be transmitted directly to the next generation – not just through silence or behaviour, but through the very rupture of history and belonging.
It’s not enough to treat individuals or families. We must also work to prevent trauma itself. That’s a different way of seeing things. “Never again” cannot remain a phrase we repeat – it has to become a principle we act upon.
In your opinion, what role should institutions, governments, courts and international bodies play in addressing and healing collective trauma? What can be done today?
Speak. Teach. Open up. Don’t leave things hidden. Don’t let things remain vague or opaque. If the trauma was national – and many of the traumas we’re talking about are – then full transparency is key.
People have lost trust in institutions – and not without reason. That trust was broken. So what must be done? Regain it. With honesty. With openness. With consistency.
Institutions must remember: they exist for the people. And that means the people – especially the victims – must be an integral part of any decisions made about them. They cannot just be informed after the fact. They must participate. Otherwise, it’s just another abuse of power. Even if that’s not the intention, that’s how it will be experienced.
So live up to your founding ideals. Become idealistic about yourselves again. Remember why you’re there in the first place. Keep that purpose alive. Let it challenge you. Let it inspire you. Don’t fall asleep in bureaucracy. Don’t reduce your work to a routine: go to the office, go home, eat, sleep, repeat. That’s how you lose the meaning of what you do.
And this is not only about institutions as a whole – it’s also about the people inside them. Remember: what you do matters to people. They look up to you. So live up to that. Live up to what they believe you can be. It’s so easy to forget that, isn’t it? So easy to flatten everything and slip into indifference. And then suddenly, it becomes culturally acceptable to hate your job, to complain all the time. But why should you? Why not make it meaningful again? Why not reconnect to what brought you there in the first place?
Look at me. I’m 85 years old. Why do you think I’m still here, still working? Because I look forward to every single day – to what I might learn, what I might contribute. And yes, like anyone else who cares deeply, I feel despair. I feel fear about where we’re going. But still – I choose to show up. Because the work matters.
You’ve spoken so powerfully about the legacy of trauma. I was going to ask what gives you hope when you look at how the world is responding – but I think, in a way, you’ve already answered: speak and listen.
Yes – speak and listen. Those are the two essential steps. They help us move forward, but also protect us. And when you need to cry – take the time. When you run from grief, you run from parts of yourself. The same is true for anger – we’re often afraid of it. But every emotion matters. That’s why I created what I call the Principles of Self-Healing . At first, it was for psychotherapists. But truly, it’s for anyone who engages with human suffering – journalists, peacebuilders, caregivers, survivors themselves.
First: awareness. Your body often knows before your mind does. Pay attention. Second: words. We must learn to name what we feel. As Bettelheim wrote – what cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. Then: containment. It’s not just the emotion that overwhelms us, but its intensity. Know your limits. Stay open. And remember – no feeling lasts for ever. Nobody has cried for ever. Nobody has screamed for ever. Let it move through you.
There’s no “back to normal” after trauma. Instead, we ask: what now? What can we build? Take time to heal before showing up for others. If someone’s story awakens your own pain – seek help. That’s not weakness. That’s integrity. Don’t do this alone. We build communities so we can hold each other.
And finally – joy is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. I always say: have fun. Not because every day is happy, but because purpose gives us the strength to go on.
Dr Yael Danieli (www.dryaeldanieli.com) is a clinical psychologist, traumatologist, victimologist and psychohistorian. Having developed the first program to help Nazi Holocaust Survivors and their Children in the 1970s, she has devoted much of her career to studying, treating, writing about, and preventing lifelong and multigenerational impacts of massive trauma worldwide, to ensuring victims’ rights, the rights of future generations, and to reparative justice.
In the last two decades Dr Danieli created the Danieli Inventory – the gold measure to (comparatively) assessing intergenerational legacies of Trauma and founded the International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma (www.ICMGLT.org).
As a victimologist, she has spent over four decades participating in drafting, adopting, implementing victims' rights, and ensuring that victims’ rights reach the victims.