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Photo of the publication The Legacy of Violence: How Trauma Is Passed Down Through Generations
ENRS

The Legacy of Violence: How Trauma Is Passed Down Through Generations

07 August 2025
Tags
  • Holocaust
  • transgenerational trauma

23 August marks the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes – a day on which we pay tribute to those who suffered as a result of the violence of totalitarian systems in the 20th century - systems based on control, repression and ideological enslavement. This year's campaign "Remember. 23 August", organised by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, focuses on intergenerational trauma – one of the most complex aspects of historical heritage. Although it leaves no visible scars, it can permeate generations and influence entire societies, shaping relationships, identities, ways of thinking and reacting.

We invited a distinguished researcher to reflect on this topic: Professor Michał Bilewicz, a social psychologist and author of Traumaland, a book on the social effects of violence and collective memory.

ENRS, Mariola Cyra: What exactly is intergenerational trauma?

Professor Michał Bilewicz: In psychology, intergenerational trauma is the phenomenon of traumatic experiences being passed on from one generation to the next – not only in a narrative sense, but mainly in a psychological dimension, affecting the mental health of descendants. This phenomenon became the focus of intensive study in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Israel. At that time, it was noticed that veterans returning from the war in Lebanon, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, showed significantly stronger symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those whose parents had not had such experiences. Research conducted at the time by Solomon, Kotler and Mikulincera showed that trauma can affect the sensitivity of subsequent generations to stressors, causing them to react more strongly to new, difficult situations.

Systematic research on this phenomenon is still being conducted in Israel today. Among other things, there is a research panel involving descendants of Holocaust survivors and people with identical demographic profiles but from families without such experiences, such as those who lived in the former Soviet Union or the Middle East during the war. They are regularly surveyed, both in everyday situations and in times of crisis. In stressful situations, the differences are clear: descendants of survivors are more likely to experience mood swings, anxiety, symptoms of depression or PTSD.

At the same time, Professor van IJzendoorn's meta-analyses show that in everyday conditions there are no significant differences in mental health between descendants of trauma victims and people from families without such experiences. Differences only appear in response to stressors – and it is this increased sensitivity to threat that is one of the key mechanisms of intergenerational trauma.

Of course, this clinical understanding of the phenomenon is only one perspective. I am also interested in the social consequences of such trauma, such as heightened distrust, a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories, hypersensitivity and anxiety. These are traits that cannot be reduced solely to mental disorders – they are rather manifestations of a specific social functioning shaped by the legacy of past traumas.

To what extent have totalitarian regimes left their mark not only on history but also on the psyche of society? Can we talk about post-traumatic societies?

Yes, we can definitely talk about such societies. In transcultural psychiatry, but also increasingly in psychology, the term historical trauma is used in this context, which differs from transgenerational trauma. The latter refers mainly to psychological or psychiatric effects passed down from generation to generation. Historical trauma, on the other hand, is a broader phenomenon that encompasses the ways in which societies adapt to extreme experiences – war, occupation, ethnic cleansing or genocide – and how these adaptations persist even when external conditions change.

After the end of a war or the fall of a regime, people formally return to normal life, but their social functioning continues to bear the marks of those experiences. We see this, for example, in entrenched mistrust, especially towards strangers, representatives of other nations or states. Fears and anxieties arise easily and resonate strongly, especially when they concern children or women – groups that have been particularly vulnerable to violence in the past. In societies that have experienced mass child deaths, rape or other forms of large-scale violence, threats of this kind trigger very strong reactions – much stronger than in societies that have not gone through such trauma.

Although intergenerational trauma refers to the experiences of past generations, its effects can also be felt by those who did not themselves experience war, repression or persecution. How does this happen?

This is a very interesting phenomenon, which has been well described by Michael Wohl and Jay van Bavel in their research among Canadian Jews. They noticed that symptoms of transgenerational trauma also appeared in people who did not have direct victims of the Holocaust among their ancestors – their families were already living in Canada during the war. The key factor here was not family history, but the strength of identification with the community. People who strongly identified with the Jewish community showed more pronounced symptoms of transgenerational trauma.

This shows that the transmission of trauma is not limited to family relationships. Of course, there is a hypothesis of epigenetic trauma transfer – i.e. biological adaptation inherited by subsequent generations – but so far there is little hard evidence for this. Cultural or social transmission is much better documented.

Trauma can be transmitted through family stories, silence, parental behaviour, but also through education, the media, rituals of remembrance or anniversary celebrations. Cultural transmission – what is said (or not said) about the past in a given community – can shape the perception of history to the same extent as individual family experiences. It is this social dimension of trauma that causes even people with no personal connection to a past tragedy to experience it as part of their own identity and respond to it emotionally.

Can people born after 1990, who grew up in a free Europe, carry the emotional legacy of totalitarian systems? How does this manifest itself – in relationships, identity, language?

The way the younger generation of Poles functions – especially those born after 1989 – is indeed very interesting and sometimes even surprising. In the research conducted by my PhD student, Damien Stewart, an Australian who analysed the phenomenon of transgenerational trauma in Poland, an intriguing observation emerged: the highest level of transgenerational PTSD symptoms is not found among the children of people who survived the occupation, but in the third generation, i.e. the grandchildren of those who experienced the war. This surprising phenomenon shows that trauma can return with a certain delay.

This generation grew up in the reality of transformation and free Poland, but also during a period of a certain renaissance of traumatic memory, which began at the start of the new millennium with the establishment of the Warsaw Uprising Museum and later with the intensification of the narrative about the Cursed Soldiers. Memories of war and violence began to return strongly to the public sphere – in mass culture, museums and education.

How can mass culture, monuments, museum narratives and school textbooks contribute to healing or, conversely, deepening trauma?

If we look at school textbooks and reading lists, we see that young people learn about the occupation most often through the stories of Tadeusz Borowski – deeply challenging texts that depict the severely degraded reality of camp life, people who lost the will to live and became known as ‘Muslims’ in camp language or, in camp literature, ‘dojchaga’. These are individuals who are mentally and physically destroyed, on the brink of life and death.

However, while such images are accurate, they depict extreme cases. The history of the occupation also includes people who, despite everything, tried to live, function, and adapt — under extreme conditions, yet still managing to preserve their humanity. Unfortunately, education often presents this darkest fragment as the norm, which leads to a distorted image of the past.

Added to this are today's immersive techniques, which are increasingly used in education and museology. Students take on the roles of victims, participate in realistic games and VR experiences. This can be effective educationally, but it also carries the risk of psychological overload.

In my research among young people visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, I found that several percent of students showed symptoms characteristic of PTSD a month after their visit – difficulty falling asleep, hypersensitivity, recurring images and nightmares. It is precisely for these young people that we must ask ourselves: How can we ensure that contact with a memorial site is an educational experience rather than a traumatic one? Remembering the past cannot be based solely on shock – its purpose should be understanding, reflection and the ability to incorporate this knowledge into a healthy identity.

So how can we talk to children about painful aspects of history when even a visit to a museum can provoke such strong reactions? What should we convey and what should we avoid?

I don't think we should avoid difficult topics or filter historical facts – that would be dishonest. It is equally dangerous to sensationalise cruelty, to focus exclusively on the most extreme and dramatic experiences, which, although true, were not the everyday reality for most people.

It is crucial to show agency. That is, to tell the story of how even in the most extreme conditions, people tried to cope, made efforts to preserve their dignity, help others, and resist – not necessarily with weapons in their hands. Often, this resistance was silent and civil. For some, religion was a form of resistance, for others it was culture, values or family ties.

Meanwhile, our education – in schools and museums – is dominated by heroic narratives: armed resistance, uprisings, guerrilla warfare. Rarely do we hear about everyday forms of survival: about someone transporting meat from the countryside to the city, enabling them to support their family; about someone hiding books banned by the occupiers or conducting secret teaching. These are stories that often circulate within families but are not passed on because they are not considered ‘heroic’. And yet they have enormous educational potential – they show how people were able to preserve their humanity, take action and care for others despite violence and fear.

It is important to teach children not only that evil and suffering existed, but also that people had a choice, that they were capable of solidarity, that they fought for survival – and that this history is not only a history of victims, but also a history of survival and courage in everyday life. This helps to build resilience, not just fear.

Isn't it silence that shapes future generations the most? Don't we remain silent too often? I ask this question personally – I am the great-granddaughter of an officer murdered in Katyn. Little has been said about the history that shaped the fate of our family.

It is definitely worth asking questions – and it is especially important when it is done by the grandchildren, the third generation. It is much more difficult for children to talk to their parents about traumatic experiences than it is for grandchildren to talk to their grandparents. There is often more emotional space and curiosity than resistance between grandchildren and grandparents.

Just as important as the question is what we do when the answer comes. Are we truly ready to listen? Many people from the generation of victims tried to speak out, but no one wanted to listen to them. As a result, many people withdrew from these attempts. They often sought community among people with similar experiences, which led to the creation of groups such as the Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Stutthof survivors’ associations. Though these names may sound unsettling today, they represented real efforts to build spaces where people didn’t have to speak about their trauma — they could simply be with others who understood it without words.

In the case of the Katyn families, silence was virtually enforced. For many years, talking about Katyn could be not only socially isolating, but also dangerous. It was a trauma pushed into the shadows – not only personal, but also political. I know that research has been conducted on how these families functioned after the war – how memory was frozen in them, passed on indirectly, through emotions and behaviour rather than words.

It was not until the 1990s and 2000s that some kind of social recognition of this memory emerged. Films such as Wajda's Katyn appeared, giving many families the feeling that they could finally speak. And that someone was finally listening.

To what extent can art – literature, film, theatre, photography – help heal intergenerational trauma?

Art can play a very important role in the process of coming to terms with and working through trauma. Sometimes it does so in a paradoxical way. If we look at the first post-war films about the occupation, we are surprisingly often confronted with comedy. Films such as Zezowate szczęście (Bad Luck) or Jak rozpętałem drugą wojnę światową (How I Unleashed World War II) were a way for the generation that had survived the war to come to terms with it. Ridiculing certain behaviours or situations allowed them to gain distance – and it is precisely this distance that is sometimes necessary to be able to integrate difficult experiences.

The same is true of other reactions that may seem inappropriate or even shocking to outsiders, such as laughter, jokes, or using a phone in places of remembrance, such as Auschwitz. We are studying these phenomena and finding that they often serve a defensive function. People are trying to come to terms with something that is almost unbearable.

This trend was also present in so-called Holocaust cinema. Films such as Train of Life and Life Is Beautiful attempt to talk about the crime in a way that not only conveys knowledge but also allows the viewer to alleviate the emotional burden at least a little.

However, it is important to remember that culture also has a darker side. It can also be traumatic. From research we have conducted, including among Polish Jews, as well as from analyses by Michael Wohl and Jay Van Bavel, we know that strong identification with a group carries with it a legacy of trauma. It can cause a person to experience secondary trauma. A culture that constantly reminds us of suffering and violence can reinforce feelings of threat, isolation and fear. It is therefore crucial how we talk about the past – and whether we give the audience the opportunity to enter this world while maintaining their own boundaries.

Can trauma teach us anything? Empathy, responsibility, freedom?

I think trauma can teach us something – though not necessarily what we would expect. In a sense, trauma prepares us for future crises. It leads to hypersensitivity and distrust, which may be destructive in times of peace but can be adaptive in moments of danger. This was evident, for example, after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022. Poles did not wait for the state to act, but took grassroots action to help refugees. This is typical behaviour for a society that remembers trauma, even if it has never explicitly named it.

We see a similar mechanism at work in the context of living under constant threat, as in Israel or Ukraine. There, people learn to function in a reality of alarms, air raids and power cuts. At the same time, they are extremely distrustful of strangers. Sociologist Daniel Bar-Tal calls this the “ethos of conflict” – a daily way of life in the reality of war. It is something that may seem inhuman from the outside, but for people living in such conditions, it becomes the new norm.

And perhaps this is what allows us to better understand how the generation that lived under occupation functioned. For them, the sight of executions, ghettos and pacification was something they had to get used to in order to survive. In this sense, as Miłosz wrote, the carousel keeps turning – not because people are indifferent, but because they have to live. This is not cynicism, but a psychologically adaptive mechanism. It may outrage us, but this is how the human psyche works.

What would you like to change in the way societies relate to their future?

There is one thing that seems particularly important to me and that could change. Historically traumatised societies very often lack the ability to recognise the trauma of others. When we have experienced suffering ourselves – especially if our trauma has not been fully recognised by the world – there is a strong need to focus on our own pain. So strong that we begin to deny the trauma of others.

For me personally, writing Traumaland was a kind of exercise in empathy. I come from a family of Holocaust survivors – most of my family died in the Holocaust. I grew up in an environment where Jewish trauma was paramount – suffering of others, including the wartime experience of non-Jewish Poles, was treated as insignificant. Henryk Grynberg once wrote that in the case of Jews, decimation means that one in ten survived, while in the case of Poles, it means that one in ten died. And that these two experiences of occupation are completely incomparable. Yet losing 10% of the entire population is a huge historical wound. And it also deserves recognition.

A similar mechanism works in reverse – many Poles, focused on their own trauma, are not ready to acknowledge the pain of others: Ukrainians, Germans, Jews. People are reluctant to talk about crimes committed by Poles, whether during the Holocaust or after the war: in the camps in Świętochłowice, Łambinowice, during Operation Vistula. And yet, being a victim in the past does not absolve one from becoming a perpetrator in the future.

The history of genocide and violence clearly shows that perpetrators were very often victims themselves. This is a painful truth. Trauma, if not worked through, can lead to a readiness to traumatise others. That is why we need a psychological perspective that focuses on individual experience rather than national narratives.

Psychology, unlike history or political science, does not create narratives that justify one side's position. It gives space to everyone – because every trauma must be acknowledged in order to be healed. And this acknowledgement is, in my opinion, our greatest hope.

Why are defensive narratives so common? Is it natural that we prefer to see ourselves only as victims?

Yes, it's quite a natural psychological mechanism. In psychology, we talk about moral typecasting – we tend to see people in rigid roles: either victim or perpetrator. It is very difficult to accept that someone can be both. The stronger we build our identity on the role of victim, the harder it is to accept that we could also have been perpetrators. Only in a few cases, such as Germany after World War II or Rwanda following the 1994 genocide, has it been possible to create a space for acknowledging this difficult duality.

History and experience are not black and white. Just look at Kashubia or Pomerania, for example – before the war, people lived side by side, the borders were different. The divisions between perpetrators and victims are not clear-cut.

Exactly. And this shows the danger of national unification of historical narrative. In psychology, we see it as very harmful because it prevents individual expression and the sharing of personal experiences. This is clearly visible today in the exhibition Our Boys, which has provoked extreme reactions – often full of ignorance. Many people are unaware that hundreds of thousands of Poles were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht – more than fought in the Home Army. And yet the fate of these people is suppressed, unwanted in the dominant narrative.

However, this is not a matter of evading responsibility. It is the result of the colonisation of Polish historical memory – first by one region, namely Central Poland, and then by one social class, the Polish intelligentsia. And it is the experience of this class, this geography, that has been extended to the whole of Poland, supplanting other histories. The history of the people of Kashubia, Pomerania and Galicia. People who could not always fit into heroic, insurrectionary narratives.

For me, as a psychologist, it is precisely these individual experiences – of people and families – that should be the starting point. Only then is it possible to truly acknowledge and work through trauma. Not through narratives imposed from above, which divide history into black and white.

Are there any countries or communities that you think have coped well with trauma and a difficult past?

Paradoxically, the more traumatised a society has been, the more difficult it is for it to deal with this trauma. I cannot name a nation that has truly come to terms with its past. For this work to be possible, there must be a starting point – acknowledgement of responsibility and calling crimes by their proper names. Germany and Rwanda are good examples. In both cases, there has been official recognition of genocide and its perpetrators, which has allowed a completely new narrative to be constructed, both educational and social.

In Germany, the Holocaust has become the absolute centre of historical memory. Research such as the MEMO-Studie by a team from the University of Bielefeld shows that most Germans know the history of their country from the moment of National Socialism onwards – earlier eras are almost absent from the collective consciousness. Teaching about the Holocaust is not questioned there – on the contrary, it is a fundamental element of civic identity.

The situation is similar in Rwanda, where tribal identities were completely abandoned after the genocide. Today, the younger generation does not know whether their families belonged to the Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. The justice system, including the Gacaca courts, not only punished the perpetrators, but also sought to reconcile local communities that had to continue living together. In this sense, one can speak of a successful internal reconstruction.

However, when we look more broadly – at Rwanda's relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo, or at the attitude of Germans in the eastern part of the country towards refugees – cracks begin to appear. Rwanda supports armed actions beyond its borders, and in Germany, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) is growing in popularity and anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise. One might therefore ask whether this success of memory – the recognition of one's own trauma – actually translates into broader social functioning. Or perhaps something has been repressed and is now returning in a different form. Dr Fiona Kazarovytska from the University of Mainz shows that Germans who are particularly proud of how their nation has come to terms with its past tend to treat the history of National Socialism as a closed chapter – which in effect makes them more susceptible to xenophobic or racist ideologies today.

All this shows that working through trauma is not a closed process, but an ongoing task – also for future generations.

Where should we start to make future generations more aware, mature and think differently about their past?

I think the starting point should be to rethink our story about the past. Poland's historical identity is today largely based on an image of suffering and moral innocence – we see ourselves primarily as passive victims. Meanwhile, history was much more complex. We need a narrative that shows agency – even in the most difficult times. We need to remember that not everyone was passive, that there were people who acted, who resisted, but also that there were different attitudes – including those that do not fit into the convenient narrative of exclusively moral victims.

How can we talk to young people about traumatic chapters of history without provoking resistance or feelings of blame? How can we break this cycle of interlocking trauma? The key is to show the complexity of history – to avoid black-and-white narratives. We need to talk about suffering and injustice, but not only through the prism of the perpetrators and their victims. It is also worth focusing on those who survived – on their choices, decisions and ways of coping. On those who, in extreme situations, showed agency, even in the smallest ways.

Instead of presenting history to young people as a story of guilt and accusation, it is worth showing it as a space for reflection on the fate of individuals – on how people reacted in extreme conditions. Only then can we hope for true understanding, empathy – and breaking the mechanism of passing trauma from generation to generation.


Professor Michał Bilewicz – social and political psychologist, professor at the University of Warsaw, where he heads the Centre for Research on Prejudice. He specialises in psychological mechanisms of reconciliation, collective memory, trauma and prejudice. Author of the book Traumaland. Poles in the Shadow of the Past.

Photo of the publication Dziedzictwo przemocy. Jak trauma przechodzi z pokolenia na pokolenie.
ENRS

Dziedzictwo przemocy. Jak trauma przechodzi z pokolenia na pokolenie.

06 August 2025
Tags
  • Holocaust
  • Second World War
  • trauma
  • transgenerational trauma

23 sierpnia przypada Europejski Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Reżimów Totalitarnych – dzień, w którym oddajemy hołd tym, którzy cierpieli w wyniku przemocy systemów totalitarnych XX wieku. Systemów opartych na przemocy, represji i ideologicznym zniewoleniu. Tegoroczna kampania koncentruje się na traumie międzypokoleniowej – jednym z najbardziej złożonych aspektów dziedzictwa historycznego. Choć nie zostawia ona widocznych ran, ale jak się okazuje potrafi przenikać przez pokolenia i wpływać na całe społeczeństwa – kształtując relacje, tożsamość, sposoby myślenia i reagowania.

Do refleksji nad tym tematem zaprosiliśmy wybitnego badacza: prof. Michała Bilewicza, psychologa społecznego i autora książki Traumaland, poświęconej pamięci zbiorowej i społecznym skutkom przemocy.

ENRS, Mariola Cyra: Czym jest trauma międzypokoleniowa?

Profesor Michał Bilewicz: W psychologii trauma międzypokoleniowa to zjawisko przekazu doświadczeń traumatycznych z jednego pokolenia na kolejne – i to nie tylko w sensie narracyjnym, ale głównie w wymiarze psychicznym, wpływającym na zdrowie psychiczne potomków. Zjawisko to zaczęto intensywnie badać w latach 70. i 80., szczególnie w Izraelu. Wówczas zauważono, że weterani powracający z wojny w Libanie, których rodzice byli ocalałymi z Holokaustu, wykazywali znacznie silniejsze objawy zespołu stresu pourazowego (PTSD) niż ci, których rodzice nie mieli takich doświadczeń. Badania prowadzone wówczas przez Solomon, Kotlera i Mikulincera pokazały, że trauma może wpływać na wrażliwość kolejnych pokoleń na stresory – sprawiając, że reagują one silniej na nowe, trudne sytuacje.

W Izraelu do dziś prowadzi się wiele systematycznych badań nad tym zjawiskiem. Istnieje tam m.in. panel badawczy, w którym uczestniczą osoby będące potomkami ocalałych z Holokaustu, a także osoby o identycznym profilu demograficznym, ale pochodzące z rodzin bez takich doświadczeń – np. tych, które w czasie wojny przebywały na terenie byłego Związku Radzieckiego czy Bliskiego Wschodu. Badani są regularnie, zarówno w codziennych warunkach, jak i w momentach kryzysów. W sytuacjach stresowych wyraźnie widać różnice – potomkowie ocalałych częściej doświadczają pogorszenia nastroju, lęku, objawów depresyjnych czy PTSD.

Jednocześnie metaanalizy profesora van IJzendoorna, pokazują, że w codziennych warunkach nie ma istotnych różnic w zdrowiu psychicznym pomiędzy potomkami ofiar traumy a osobami z rodzin bez takich doświadczeń. Różnice pojawiają się dopiero w odpowiedzi na stresory – i to właśnie ta zwiększona wrażliwość na zagrożenie jest jednym z kluczowych mechanizmów traumy międzypokoleniowej.

Oczywiście to kliniczne rozumienie zjawiska to tylko jedna z perspektyw. Mnie osobiście interesują również społeczne konsekwencje takiej traumy – takie jak wzmożona nieufność, skłonność do wierzenia w teorie spiskowe, nadwrażliwość czy lękowość. To cechy, których nie da się sprowadzić wyłącznie do zaburzeń psychicznych – są one raczej przejawem specyficznego funkcjonowania społecznego, ukształtowanego przez dziedzictwo przeszłych traum.

W jakim stopniu reżimy totalitarne odcisnęły piętno nie tylko na historii, ale i na psychice społeczeństwa? Czy możemy mówić o społeczeństwach po traumie?

Tak, zdecydowanie możemy mówić o takich społeczeństwach. W psychiatrii transkulturowej, ale też coraz częściej również w psychologii, używa się w tym kontekście pojęcia traumy historycznej, które różni się od traumy transgeneracyjnej. Ta druga odnosi się głównie do efektów psychologicznych lub psychiatrycznych przenoszonych z pokolenia na pokolenie. Natomiast trauma historyczna to szersze zjawisko, obejmujące sposoby, w jakie społeczeństwa adaptują się do skrajnych doświadczeń – wojny, okupacji, czystek etnicznych czy ludobójstwa – i jak te adaptacje utrzymują się nawet wtedy, gdy warunki zewnętrzne ulegają zmianie.

Po zakończeniu wojny czy po upadku reżimu ludzie formalnie wracają do normalnego życia, ale ich funkcjonowanie społeczne nadal nosi ślady tamtych doświadczeń. Widzimy to na przykład w utrwalonej nieufności – szczególnie wobec obcych, przedstawicieli innych narodów czy państw. Obawy i lęki pojawiają się łatwo i silnie rezonują, zwłaszcza jeśli dotyczą dzieci czy kobiet – czyli grup, które były szczególnie narażone na przemoc w przeszłości. W społeczeństwach, które doświadczyły masowej śmierci dzieci, gwałtów czy innych form przemocy na dużą skalę, zagrożenia tego typu uruchamiają bardzo silne reakcje – znacznie silniejsze niż w społeczeństwach, które nie przeszły przez tego rodzaju traumę.

Choć trauma międzypokoleniowa odnosi się do doświadczeń przeszłych pokoleń, jej skutki bywają odczuwalne także przez tych, którzy sami nie przeżyli wojny, represji czy prześladowań. Jak to się dzieje?

To bardzo ciekawe zjawisko, które dobrze opisali Michael Wohl i Jay van Bavel, prowadząc badania wśród kanadyjskich Żydów. Zauważyli oni, że objawy traumy transgeneracyjnej pojawiały się również u osób, które nie miały wśród swoich przodków bezpośrednich ofiar Holokaustu – ich rodziny mieszkały już w Kanadzie w czasie wojny. Kluczowym czynnikiem okazała się tutaj nie historia rodzinna, lecz siła identyfikacji ze wspólnotą. Osoby, które silnie utożsamiały się ze społecznością żydowską, wykazywały wyraźniejsze objawy traumy transgeneracyjnej.

To pokazuje, że przekaz traumy nie ogranicza się wyłącznie do relacji rodzinnych. Oczywiście, istnieje hipoteza o epigenetycznym transferze traumy – czyli biologicznej adaptacji dziedziczonej przez kolejne pokolenia – ale jak dotąd mamy na to niewiele twardych dowodów. Znacznie lepiej udokumentowany jest przekaz kulturowy czy społeczny.

Trauma może być przekazywana przez rodzinne opowieści, milczenie, zachowania rodziców, ale także przez edukację, media, rytuały pamięci czy obchody rocznic. Przekaz kulturowy – to, co mówi się (lub czego się nie mówi) o przeszłości w danej wspólnocie – może kształtować postrzeganie historii w takim samym stopniu, jak indywidualne doświadczenia rodzinne. To właśnie ten społeczny wymiar traumy sprawia, że nawet osoby bez osobistych związków z przeszłą tragedią mogą ją odczuwać jako część własnej tożsamości i reagować na nią emocjonalnie.

Czy osoby urodzone po 1990 roku, które dorastały w wolnej Europie, mogą nieść w sobie emocjonalne dziedzictwo systemów totalitarnych? Jak to się objawia – w relacjach, tożsamości, języku?

To, jak funkcjonuje młodsze pokolenie Polaków – zwłaszcza tych urodzonych po 1989 roku – jest rzeczywiście bardzo ciekawe i czasami wręcz zaskakujące. W badaniach mojego doktoranta, Damiena Stewarta – Australijczyka, który analizował zjawisko traumy transgeneracyjnej w Polsce – pojawiła się intrygująca obserwacja: najwyższy poziom objawów transgeneracyjnego PTSD nie występuje wśród dzieci osób, które przeżyły okupację, ale właśnie w trzecim pokoleniu, czyli u wnuków tych, którzy doświadczyli wojny. To zaskakujące zjawisko pokazuje, że trauma może wracać z pewnym opóźnieniem.

To pokolenie dorastało już w realiach transformacji i wolnej Polski, ale też w okresie pewnego renesansu pamięci traumatycznej, który rozpoczął się na początku obecnego tysiąclecia, wraz z powstaniem Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego, a później z intensyfikacją narracji o Żołnierzach Wyklętych. Pamięć o wojnie i przemocy zaczęła wtedy mocno powracać do przestrzeni publicznej – w kulturze masowej, muzeach, edukacji.

Jak kultura masowa, pomniki, narracje muzealne czy podręczniki szkolne mogą przyczynić się do uzdrawiania albo – przeciwnie – pogłębiania traumy?

Jeśli przyjrzymy się podręcznikom czy lekturom szkolnym, zobaczymy, że młodzież poznaje historię okupacji najczęściej przez opowiadania Tadeusza Borowskiego – teksty niezwykle trudne, ukazujące ekstremalnie zdegradowany świat obozów, ludzi, którzy utracili wolę życia, stali się tzw. „muzułmanami” w języku obozowym, czy – w literaturze łagrowej – dochodjaga. To są jednostki wyniszczone psychicznie i fizycznie – na granicy życia i śmierci.

Tymczasem takie obrazy, choć prawdziwe, dotyczą skrajnych przypadków. Historia okupacji to także ludzie, którzy mimo wszystko próbowali żyć, funkcjonować, przystosować się – w ekstremalnych warunkach, ale jednak zachować człowieczeństwo. Niestety, edukacja często przedstawia właśnie ten najbardziej mroczny wycinek jako normę, co prowadzi do zniekształcenia obrazu przeszłości.

Do tego dochodzą dziś techniki immersyjne – coraz częściej wykorzystywane w edukacji czy muzealnictwie. Uczniowie i uczennice wcielają się w postacie ofiar, uczestniczą w realistycznych grach, doświadczeniach VR. To może być skuteczne edukacyjnie, ale niesie też ryzyko przeciążenia psychicznego.

W badaniach, które prowadziłem wśród młodzieży odwiedzającej Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, okazało się, że kilkanaście procent uczniów wykazywało miesiąc po wizycie objawy charakterystyczne dla PTSD – trudności z zasypianiem, nadwrażliwość, powracające obrazy, koszmary. Właśnie dla tych młodych ludzi trzeba zadać sobie pytanie: Jak sprawić, by kontakt z miejscem pamięci był doświadczeniem edukacyjnym, a nie traumatyzującym? Pamięć o przeszłości nie może polegać wyłącznie na szoku – jej celem powinno być zrozumienie, refleksja i możliwość włączenia tej wiedzy w zdrową tożsamość.

Jak więc rozmawiać z dziećmi o bolesnych aspektach historii, skoro nawet wizyta w muzeum może wywoływać tak silne reakcje? Co warto przekazywać, a czego unikać?

Nie uważam, żebyśmy powinni unikać trudnych tematów czy filtrować fakty historyczne – to byłoby nieuczciwe. Równie niebezpieczne jest epatowanie okrucieństwem, koncentrowanie się wyłącznie na najbardziej skrajnych i dramatycznych doświadczeniach, które – choć prawdziwe – nie były codziennością większości ludzi.

Kluczowe jest pokazanie sprawczości. To znaczy: opowiadanie o tym, że nawet w najbardziej ekstremalnych warunkach ludzie próbowali sobie radzić, podejmowali wysiłki, by zachować godność, pomagać innym, stawiać opór – niekoniecznie z bronią w ręku. Często był to opór cichy, cywilny. Dla niektórych formą oporu była religia, dla innych kultura, wartości, więzi rodzinne.

Tymczasem w naszej edukacji – w szkołach czy muzeach – dominuje narracja heroiczna: opór zbrojny, powstania, partyzantka. Rzadko mówi się o codziennych formach przetrwania: o tym, że ktoś przewoził mięso ze wsi do miasta, dzięki czemu był w stanie utrzymać swoją rodzinę; że ktoś przechowywał książki zakazane przez okupanta albo prowadził tajne nauczanie. To są historie, które często funkcjonują w rodzinach, ale nie są przekazywane dalej, bo nie uchodzą za „bohaterskie”. A to właśnie one mają ogromny potencjał edukacyjny – pokazują, jak ludzie potrafili zachować człowieczeństwo, działać, troszczyć się o innych mimo przemocy i strachu.

Dzieciom warto przekazywać nie tylko to, że istniało zło i cierpienie, ale również, że ludzie mieli wybór, że potrafili być solidarni, że walczyli o przetrwanie – i że ta historia nie jest tylko historią ofiar, ale też historii przetrwania i odwagi w codzienności. To pomaga zbudować odporność, a nie tylko lęk.

Czy to nie milczenie najmocniej kształtuje kolejne pokolenia? Czy nie milczymy zbyt często? Pytam o to też osobiście – jestem prawnuczką oficera zamordowanego w Katyniu. O historii, która wpłynęła na losy naszej rodziny, niewiele się mówiło.

Zdecydowanie warto zadawać pytania – i szczególnie ważne jest, gdy robi to pokolenie wnuków, to trzecie pokolenie. Dzieciom znacznie trudniej rozmawiać z własnymi rodzicami o traumatycznych doświadczeniach niż wnukom z dziadkami. Między wnukami a dziadkami jest często więcej przestrzeni emocjonalnej, więcej ciekawości niż oporu.

Równie ważne jak pytanie, jest to, co zrobimy, kiedy pojawi się odpowiedź. Czy jesteśmy gotowi naprawdę wysłuchać? Wiele osób z pokolenia ofiar próbowało mówić – tylko nikt nie chciał ich słuchać. W efekcie wiele osób wycofało się z tych prób. Często szukali wspólnoty wśród ludzi z podobnym doświadczeniem – stąd powstały takie środowiska jak Kluby Auschwitz, Buchenwaldu, Stutthofu. Te nazwy mogą dziś brzmieć makabrycznie, ale to były realne próby stworzenia przestrzeni, gdzie można nie tyle mówić o traumie wprost, ile po prostu być z ludźmi, którzy rozumieją bez słów.

W przypadku rodzin katyńskich milczenie było wręcz wymuszone. Przez wiele lat mówienie o Katyniu mogło być nie tylko społecznie wykluczające, ale i niebezpieczne. To trauma zepchnięta w cień – nie tylko osobisty, ale też polityczny. Wiem, że prowadzone były badania nad tym, jak te rodziny funkcjonowały po wojnie – jak pamięć została w nich zamrożona, przekazywana pośrednio, przez emocje, zachowania, a nie słowa.

Dopiero lata 90. i 2000. przyniosły coś w rodzaju społecznego uznania dla tej pamięci. Pojawiły się filmy, takie jak Katyń Wajdy, które dały wielu rodzinom poczucie, że wreszcie można mówić. I że ktoś wreszcie słucha.

Na ile sztuka – literatura, film, teatr, fotografia – może pomóc w leczeniu traumy międzypokoleniowej?

Sztuka może pełnić bardzo istotną rolę w procesie oswajania i przepracowywania traumy. Czasem robi to w sposób paradoksalny. Jeśli przyjrzymy się pierwszym powojennym filmom dotyczącym okupacji, to zaskakująco często mamy do czynienia z komedią. Filmy takie jak Zezowate szczęście czy Jak rozpętałem drugą wojnę światową były sposobem, w jaki pokolenie, które samo przeżyło wojnę, próbowało z nią sobie poradzić. Wyśmiewanie pewnych zachowań czy sytuacji pozwalało nabrać dystansu – i właśnie ten dystans bywa niezbędny, by móc jakoś zintegrować trudne doświadczenia.

Podobnie jest z innymi reakcjami, które z zewnątrz mogą wydawać się niestosowne czy wręcz bulwersujące – jak śmiech, żarty, korzystanie z telefonu w miejscach pamięci, na przykład w Auschwitz. Badamy te zjawiska i okazuje się, że one często pełnią funkcję obronną. Ludzie próbują oswoić coś, co jest niemal nie do zniesienia.

Taki nurt obecny był także w tzw. kinie Holokaustu. Filmy takie jak Pociąg życia czy Życie jest piękne – podejmują próbę mówienia o zbrodni w sposób, która nie tylko przekazuje wiedzę, ale też pozwala widzowi choć trochę złagodzić emocjonalne obciążenie.

Trzeba jednak pamiętać, że kultura ma też swoją ciemniejszą stronę. Może również traumatyzować. Z badań, które prowadziliśmy m.in. wśród polskich Żydów, a także z analiz Michaela Wohla i Jaya Van Bavel'a, wiemy, że bardzo silna identyfikacja z grupą niesie w sobie dziedzictwo traumy. Może sprawiać, że człowiek doświadcza traumy wtórnej. Kultura, która stale przypomina o cierpieniu i przemocy, może wzmacniać poczucie zagrożenia, izolacji, lęku. Kluczowe jest więc, jak mówimy o przeszłości – i czy dajemy odbiorcy możliwość wejścia w ten świat z zachowaniem własnych granic.

Czy trauma może nas czegoś nauczyć? Empatii, odpowiedzialności, wolności?

Myślę, że trauma może nas czegoś nauczyć – choć niekoniecznie tego, czego byśmy oczekiwali. W pewnym sensie trauma przygotowuje nas na kolejne kryzysy. Prowadzi do nadwrażliwości, nieufności, które w czasie pokoju bywają destrukcyjne, ale w sytuacjach zagrożenia okazują się adaptacyjne. Widać to było choćby po wybuchu wojny w Ukrainie w 2022 roku. Polacy nie czekali na działania państwa, tylko oddolnie ruszyli z pomocą uchodźcom. To typowe zachowanie dla społeczeństwa, które ma w pamięci traumę – nawet jeśli nigdy jej wprost nie nazwało.

Z podobnym mechanizmem mamy do czynienia w kontekście życia w stałym zagrożeniu, jak w Izraelu czy Ukrainie. Tam ludzie uczą się funkcjonować w rzeczywistości alarmów, nalotów, przerw w dostawie prądu. A jednocześnie w krańcowej nieufności wobec obcych. Socjolog Daniel Bar-Tal nazywa to „etosem konfliktu” – codziennym sposobem życia w realiach wojny. To coś, co z zewnątrz może się wydawać nieludzkie, ale dla osób żyjących w takich warunkach staje się nową normą.

I może to właśnie pozwala nam lepiej zrozumieć, jak funkcjonowało pokolenie, które żyło pod okupacją. Dla nich widok egzekucji, getta, pacyfikacji – był czymś, z czym musieli się oswoić, żeby przeżyć. W tym sensie, jak pisał Miłosz, karuzela kręci się dalej – nie dlatego, że ludzie są obojętni, ale dlatego, że muszą żyć. To nie cynizm, lecz psychologicznie adaptacyjny mechanizm. Może nas to oburzać, ale tak działa ludzka psychika.

Co chciałby Pan zmienić w tym, jak społeczeństwa odnoszą się do swojej przyszłości?

Jest jedna rzecz, która wydaje mi się szczególnie ważna i która mogłaby się zmienić. W społeczeństwach historycznie straumatyzowanych bardzo często brakuje zdolności do uznania traum innych. Kiedy sami doświadczyliśmy cierpienia – zwłaszcza jeśli nasza trauma nie została w pełni uznana przez świat – pojawia się silna potrzeba skupienia na własnym bólu. Tak silna, że zaczynamy zaprzeczać traumom innych.

Dla mnie osobiście pisanie Traumaland było pewnego rodzaju ćwiczeniem empatii. Pochodzę z rodziny ocalałych z Holokaustu – większość mojej rodziny zginęła podczas Zagłady. Dorastałem w środowisku, w którym trauma żydowska była najważniejsza – inne cierpienia, w tym wojenne doświadczenie Polaków nie będących Żydami traktowano jako mało doniosłe. Kiedyś pisał o tym Henryk Grynberg, że w wypadku Żydów zdziesiątkowanie znaczy, że co dziesiąty przeżył – zaś w wypadku Polaków, że co dziesiąty zginął. I że te dwa okupacyjne doświadczenia są zupełnie nieporównywalne. A przecież stracenie 10% całej populacji to ogromna, historyczna rana. I ona również zasługuje na uznanie.

Podobny mechanizm działa też w odwrotną stronę – wielu Polaków, skoncentrowanych na własnej traumie, nie jest gotowych uznać bólu innych: Ukraińców, Niemców, Żydów. Niechętnie mówi się o zbrodniach popełnionych przez Polaków – czy to w czasie Holokaustu, czy po wojnie: w obozach w Świętochłowicach, Łambinowicach, podczas akcji „Wisła”. A przecież bycie ofiarą w przeszłości nie wyklucza bycia sprawcą w przyszłości.

W historii ludobójstw i przemocy widać jasno: sprawcy bardzo często wcześniej byli ofiarami. To bolesna prawda. Trauma – jeśli nie zostanie przepracowana – może prowadzić do gotowości traumatyzowania innych. Dlatego potrzebujemy perspektywy psychologicznej, skoncentrowanej na indywidualnym doświadczeniu, a nie na narodowej narracji.

Psychologia, w przeciwieństwie do historii czy politologii, nie tworzy opowieści uzasadniających rację jednej strony. Ona daje przestrzeń każdemu – bo każda trauma, by mogła zostać uleczona, musi zostać uznana. I to uznanie jest, moim zdaniem, naszą największą nadzieją.

Dlaczego defensywne narracje są tak powszechne? Czy to naturalne, że wolimy widzieć siebie tylko jako ofiary?

Tak, to dość naturalny mechanizm psychologiczny. W psychologii mówimy o moral typecasting – mamy tendencję, by postrzegać ludzi w sztywnych rolach: albo ofiara, albo sprawca. Bardzo trudno jest pogodzić się z tym, że ktoś może być i jednym, i drugim. Im silniej budujemy własną tożsamość na roli ofiary, tym trudniej przyjąć, że mogliśmy również być sprawcami. Tylko w nielicznych przypadkach, takich jak Niemcy po II wojnie światowej czy Rwanda po ludobójstwie, udało się stworzyć przestrzeń do przyznania się do tej trudnej podwójności.

Historia i doświadczenia nie są czarno-białe. Wystarczy spojrzeć na przykład Kaszub czy Pomorza – przed wojną ludzie żyli obok siebie, granice były inne. Podziały na oprawców i ofiary nie są jednoznaczne.

Dokładnie tak. I to pokazuje niebezpieczeństwo narodowej unifikacji narracji historycznej. W psychologii postrzegamy ją jako bardzo szkodliwą, bo uniemożliwia indywidualną ekspresję i opowiedzenie osobistego doświadczenia. Doskonale widać to dziś przy okazji wystawy Nasi chłopcy, która wywołała skrajne reakcje – często pełne niewiedzy i ignorancji. Wiele osób nie zdaje sobie sprawy, że przymusowo do Wehrmachtu wcielono setki tysięcy Polaków – więcej, niż walczyło w Armii Krajowej. A mimo to losy tych ludzi są wypierane, niepożądane w dominującej narracji.

To nie jest jednak kwestia ucieczki od odpowiedzialności. To efekt tego, że polska pamięć historyczna została skolonizowana – najpierw przez jeden region, czyli Polskę Centralną, a potem przez jedną klasę społeczną – polską inteligencję. I to doświadczenie tej klasy, tej geografii, zostało rozciągnięte na całą Polskę, wypierając inne historie. Historię ludzi z Kaszub, z Pomorza, z Galicji. Ludzi, którzy nie zawsze mogli się wpisać w heroiczne, insurekcyjne narracje.

Dla mnie, jako psychologa, to właśnie indywidualne doświadczenia – ludzi, rodzin – powinny stać się punktem wyjścia. Tylko wtedy możliwe jest prawdziwe uznanie i przepracowanie traumy. A nie poprzez narzucane z góry narracje, które dzielą historię na czarne i białe pola.

Czy są kraje lub społeczności, które Pana zdaniem poradziły sobie z traumą, z trudną przeszłością?

Paradoksalnie – im bardziej społeczeństwo było straumatyzowane, tym trudniej mu się z tą traumą uporać. Nie potrafię wskazać narodu, który rzeczywiście w pełni „przepracował” swoją przeszłość. Żeby ta praca była możliwa, musi istnieć jakiś punkt wyjścia – uznanie sprawstwa, nazwanie zbrodni po imieniu. Dobrym przykładem są Niemcy czy Rwanda. W obu przypadkach mamy do czynienia z oficjalnym uznaniem ludobójstwa i jego sprawców, co pozwoliło zbudować zupełnie nową narrację – zarówno edukacyjną, jak i społeczną.

W Niemczech Holokaust stał się absolutnym centrum pamięci historycznej. Badania, takie jak MEMO-Studie zespołu z Uniwersytetu w Bielefeld, pokazują, że większość Niemców zna historię swojego kraju właśnie od momentu narodowego socjalizmu – wcześniejsze epoki są niemal nieobecne w zbiorowej świadomości. Nauczanie o Holokauście nie jest tam kwestionowane – wręcz przeciwnie, jest fundamentalnym elementem tożsamości obywatelskiej.

Podobnie w Rwandzie – po ludobójstwie całkowicie zerwano z tożsamościami plemiennymi. Dziś młode pokolenie nie wie, czy ich rodziny należały do Hutu, Tutsi czy Twa. System sprawiedliwości, w tym sądy Gacaca, nie tylko karał sprawców, ale też dążył do pojednania lokalnych wspólnot, które musiały nadal żyć razem. I w tym sensie można mówić o sukcesie wewnętrznej odbudowy.

Kiedy jednak spojrzymy szerzej – na relacje Rwandy z Demokratyczną Republiką Konga, czy na kwestie stosunku Niemców ze wschodniej części kraju do uchodźców – to pojawiają się rysy. Rwanda wspiera zbrojne działania poza swoimi granicami, a w Niemczech rośnie popularność AfD (niem. Alternative für Deutschland) i nastroje antyimigranckie. Można więc zadać pytanie, czy ten sukces pamięci – uznania własnej traumy – rzeczywiście przekłada się na szersze społeczne funkcjonowanie. A może coś zostało wyparte – i teraz właśnie wraca w innej formie. Dr. Fiona Kazarovytska z Uniwersytetu w Moguncji pokazuje, że Niemcy, którzy są szczególnie dumni z tego, jak ich naród rozliczył się z przeszłością, mają tendencję do traktowania historii narodowego socjalizmu jako zamkniętego rozdziału – co w efekcie czyni ich dzisiaj bardziej podatnymi na wszelkie ksenofobiczne czy rasistowskie ideologie.

To wszystko pokazuje, że przepracowanie traumy to nie zamknięty proces, tylko ciągłe zadanie – także dla przyszłych pokoleń.

Od czego zacząć zmianę, by kolejne pokolenia były bardziej świadome, dojrzałe, inaczej myślały o swojej przeszłości?

Myślę, że punktem wyjścia powinno być przeformułowanie naszej opowieści o przeszłości. Polska tożsamość historyczna jest dziś w dużej mierze oparta na obrazie cierpienia i moralnej niewinności – postrzegamy siebie przede wszystkim jako bierne ofiary. Tymczasem historia była znacznie bardziej złożona. Potrzebujemy narracji, która pokazuje sprawczość – także w najtrudniejszych czasach. Trzeba przypominać, że nie wszyscy byli bierni, że byli ludzie, którzy działali, opierali się, ale też, że różne były postawy – również takie, które wymykają się wygodnej opowieści o wyłącznie moralnych ofiarach.

Jak rozmawiać z młodymi ludźmi o traumatycznych kartach historii, by nie budzić w nich oporu ani poczucia oskarżenia? Jak przełamać to koło zazębiającej się traumy?

Kluczem jest pokazywanie złożoności historii – unikanie czarno-białych narracji. Trzeba mówić o cierpieniu i niesprawiedliwości, ale nie tylko przez pryzmat sprawców i ich ofiar. Warto kierować uwagę także na tych, którzy ocaleli – na ich wybory, decyzje, sposoby radzenia sobie. Na tych, którzy w sytuacjach granicznych wykazywali sprawczość, choćby w najdrobniejszy sposób.

Zamiast przedstawiać młodym ludziom historię jako opowieść o winie i oskarżeniu, warto ukazywać ją jako przestrzeń refleksji nad losem jednostki – nad tym, jak ludzie reagowali w skrajnych warunkach. Tylko wtedy możemy liczyć na prawdziwe zrozumienie, empatię – i przełamanie tego mechanizmu przenoszenia traumy z pokolenia na pokolenie.


Michał Bilewicz – psycholog społeczny i polityczny, profesor Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, gdzie kieruje Centrum Badań nad Uprzedzeniami. Zajmuje się psychologicznymi mechanizmami pojednania, pamięci zbiorowej, traumy i uprzedzeń. Autor książki Traumaland. Polacy w cieniu przeszłości.

Photo of the publication Some Principles of Self-Healing
Yael Danieli

Some Principles of Self-Healing

01 August 2025
Tags
  • 23 August

Introduction

Professionals, who work closely with trauma as therapists, humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, or journalists, often carry the emotional weight of the stories they hear. This guide by Dr Yael Danieli offers practical insights to help caregivers recognise, contain, and transform their emotional responses to trauma exposure.

These reactions, known as event countertransference, are a natural part of empathetic engagement. Left unaddressed, however, they can take a personal toll and affect professional effectiveness. The principles outlined here provide a pathway for maintaining emotional well-being, fostering growth and sustaining the strength needed to support others.

The following principles are designed to help professionals (protectors and providers) recognise, contain, and heal (carers’ reactions to the stories of trauma events rather than to the victims themselves).

A. To recognise one's reactions:
1. Develop awareness of somatic signals of distress - one's chart of warning signs of potential countertransference reactions, e.g., sleeplessness, headaches, perspiration.
2. Try to find words to name accurately and to articulate one's inner experiences and feelings. As Bettelheim (1984) commented, "what cannot be talked about can also not be put to rest; and if it is not, the wounds continue to fester from generation to generation." (p. 166).

B. To contain one's reactions:
1. Identify one's personal level of comfort in order to build openness, tolerance and readiness to hear anything.
2. Knowing that every emotion has a beginning, a middle, and an end, learn to attenuate one's fear of being overwhelmed by its intensity to try to feel its full life-cycle without resorting to defensive countertransference reactions.

C. To heal and grow
1. Accept that nothing will ever be the same.
2. When one feels wounded, one should take time, accurately diagnose, sooth and heal before being "emotionally fit" again to continue to work.

3. Seek consultation or further therapy for previously unexplored areas triggered by patients' stories.

4. Any one of the affective reactions (i.e., grief, mourning, rage) may interact with old, un-worked through experiences of the therapists. They will thus be able to use their professional work purposefully for their own growth.

5. Establish a network of people to create a holding environment (Winnicot, 1965), within which one can share one's trauma related work.

6. Therapists should provide themselves with avocational avenues for creative and relaxing self-expression in order to regenerate energies.

Being kind to oneself and feeling free to have fun and joy is not a frivolity in this field but a necessity without which one cannot fulfill one's professional obligations, one's professional contract.

*The manual is an extract from: Danieli, Y. (Ed.), Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills: International protectors and providers, peacekeepers, humanitarian aid workers and the media in the midst of crisis. Published for and on behalf of the United Nations by Baywood Publishing Company, Inc., Amityville, New York, pp. 279 -380, (2002).


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.

Photo of the publication Necessary Elements of Healing after Massive Traumatisation
Yael Danieli

Necessary Elements of Healing after Massive Traumatisation

01 August 2025
Tags
  • Holocaust
  • 23 August

Statement of Goals and Recommendations (updated 2012)

In the following article, Dr Yael Danieli summarises the necessary components for healing in the wake of massive trauma. Emerged from interviews with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, Japanese and Armenian Americans, victims from Argentina and Chile, and professionals working with them, both in and outside their countries, these components are presented as goals and recommendations, organised from the (A) individual, (B) societal, (C) national, and (D) international perspectives, as follows:

A. Reestablishment of the victims' equality of value, power, esteem (dignity), the basis of reparation in the society or nation.
This is accomplished by:
a. compensation, both real and symbolic;
b. restitution;
c. rehabilitation;
d. commemoration.

B. Relieving the victim's stigmatisation and separation from society.
This is accomplished by:
a. commemoration;
b. memorials to heroism;
c. empowerment;
d. education, on all levels and media.

C. Repairing the nations' ability to provide and maintain equal value under law and the provisions of justice.
This is accomplished by:
a. prosecution;
b. genuine apology;
c. establishing national secure public records;
d. education, on all levels and media;
e. creating national mechanisms for monitoring, conflict resolution and preventive interventions.

D. Asserting the commitment of the international community to combat impunity and provide and maintain equal value under law and the provisions of justice and redress.
This is accomplished by:
a. creating and utilising ad hoc and permanent mechanisms for prosecution (e.g., ad hoc Tribunals, the International Criminal Court);
b. establishing international secure public records;
c. education, on all levels and media;
d. creating international mechanisms for monitoring, conflict resolution and preventive interventions.

It is important to emphasize that this comprehensive framework, rather than presenting alternative means of reparation, sets out necessary complementary elements, all of which are needed to be applied in different weights, in different situations, cultures and context, and at different points in time. It is also essential that victims/survivors participate in the choice of the reparation measures adopted for them. While justice is crucially one of the healing agents, it does not replace the other psychological and social elements necessary for recovery. It is thus a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for healing. Moreover, the different elements must be applied to transitional or alternative justice mech¬anisms such as truth commissions.

* This text was originally published in T.C. van Boven, C. Flinterman, F. Grunfeld & I. Westendorp (Eds.) ‘The Right to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.’ (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, 1992), Special Issue No. 12 (pp. 196-213). Also published in N.J. Kritz (Ed.) ‘Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes.’ Vol. 1, (pp. 572-582). (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1995). An updated version, ‘Justice and Reparation: Steps in the Process of Healing’ appeared in C.C. Joyner (Ed.), ‘Reining in Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Violations of Fundamental Human Rights: Proceedings of the Siracusa Conference 17-21 September 1998.’ (International Review of Penal Law, 1998), Vol. 14, (pp. 303-312).


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.

Photo of the publication Hiding a Festering Wound only Makes the Situation Worse
Kristina Tamelytė

Hiding a Festering Wound only Makes the Situation Worse

22 July 2025
Tags
  • communism
  • historical education

Interview With Maria Axinte Creator of the Children’s Museum of Communism by Kristina Tamelytė correspondent for LRT.lt

‘Abolishing a museum, in my view, brings little value. What truly matters is fostering dialogue about it and the complex choices people have had to face,’ says Maria Axinte, a Romanian and co-founder of the Children’s Museum of Communism in Romania. When asked about the controversy surrounding the Venclova House Museum in Vilnius, which relates to poets who served the Communist Party, she emphasises the necessity of confronting painful experiences and understanding them, as only through such engagement can the wounds of society begin to heal.

I had the opportunity to speak with Maria in Warsaw during the European Remembrance Symposium, an event organised by the ENRS. This symposium brought together museum professionals, historians and policymakers to explore the concept of freedom and its significance in the modern world.

Maria Axinte came to Warsaw to share her experience of creating the Children’s Museum of Communism in Romania. We talked not only about the origins of this ambitious initiative but also about the methods employed by the museum’s educators to engage children and convey the historical context of Romania’s communist past. Her reflections offered a compelling glimpse into the delicate balance of presenting difficult histories to young audiences while fostering understanding and critical thinking.

You are one of the authors of the Museum of Communism for Children. How did the idea of creating such a museum come about?
MA: I must say that this idea was not part of our initial plan, nor did we foresee bringing it to fruition. I represent the Pitești Prison Memorial Museum, a site located in southern Romania, near Bucharest. This prison operated during the years 1949–51, when Romania was under the rule of the Communist Party. It was a place where both physical and psychological violence were used to ‘re-educate’ young, politically active people who did not share communist views at the time (about 600 young people were imprisoned there – LRT.lt). The aim was to convert them to communism. This period stands out as one of the most brutal chapters in both the history of communism and Romania.

The exhibition at the Memorial Museum is not accessible to children, as the emotions, experiences and events it portrays are simply too intense. You have to be at least 12 years old to visit the museum. We believe that by this age, a child is capable of beginning to understand the more complex and painful aspects of the world.

However, while working on the exhibition, we realised that children often came with their parents to our location but because of their age were unable to visit the prison exhibition. We were often asked by the children why they could not see the exhibition.

Our encounter with a Romanian artist who creates illustrations about children in prisons inspired the idea for a new exhibition. However, we couldn’t simply focus on repression alone – we needed to provide children with context. What is communism? Why did communists imprison people? Had these individuals done anything wrong?

Together with the previously mentioned artist, we created a graphic novel depicting the imprisonment of children in Romania. This was followed by an exhibition about communism tailored for children. Over time, we realised that we could expand this initiative into a fully fledged museum, where children could gain a deeper understanding of that era and see the world from the perspective of children who lived under communism.

Today, the Children’s Museum of Communism comprises four exhibition spaces, and we plan to add two more, as we have recently received additional funding for the project.

What can young visitors discover in your exhibition?
MA: First and foremost, children can learn about the ideological foundations of communism. We discuss figures such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Notably, communism was banned in Romania before 1944, but following the arrival of the Soviet army, all political prisoners were released from jail.

The presence of the Soviet army on Romanian soil naturally facilitated the Communist Party’s rise to power. In the 1946 elections, votes were blatantly falsified.

To illustrate this historical manipulation, we’ve designed an educational exercise for children. During the activity, they’re invited to vote on how they would like to conduct their lesson that day: either in a traditional, school-like format or in an interactive way. The voting process is conducted in secret, and once the votes are tallied, we announce that the traditional method has won – regardless of the actual results. Most children are visibly dissatisfied, having voted for the interactive option. At this point, we ask them how they feel about such an outcome. Of course, they’re unhappy – they didn’t vote for it! Eventually, the activity proceeds in the interactive format they originally chose, but the exercise allows them to experience the injustice of manipulated elections firsthand. We then discuss how people might feel in the face of such falsifications, as happened during Romania’s communist era.

The exhibition also introduces children to various methods of repression used under communism, such as collectivisation, nationalisation and political imprisonment. These lessons aim to foster a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of control and their impact on individuals and society.

We strive to emphasise resistance, particularly the fact that children also took part in various forms of resistance against the Soviet regime. For instance, some children also were born into partisan groups in the mountains, while others were born to imprisoned mothers and spent the first years of their lives in prison or were themselves detained in children’s prisons.

In the new sections of the exhibition, we aim to address topics such as the revolution, the fall of the communist regime and the emergence of democracy, effectively guiding children towards the present day. This part of the exhibition is still under development.

An essential element of our approach is to allow children to engage with the exhibits physically. For example, we feature biographies of former communist leaders of Romania, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceaușescu. Children are prompted to place these biographies in metal cabinets, symbolising the imprisonment of many Romanian citizens by these leaders without just cause. Through this metaphor, we ‘imprison’ the leaders themselves in the cabinets. Children are then invited to release them and learn more about their lives and actions.

I believe this metaphor is both powerful and engaging. Some children are hesitant – even frightened – and refuse to open the cabinets, while others find the activity fascinating. It offers them an opportunity to learn not only about historical figures but also about themselves and their responses to such symbolic acts.

When we launched the museum, we also introduced a diary-like learning tool called My Communist History Journal. This chronicle of Romania’s communist era is written in accessible, child-friendly language. It features various exercises, encouraging children to become detectives of history.

We avoid overwhelming them with intricate details or facts about communism. Instead, we aim to spark conversations with their families and peers. For example, one task asks children to assume the role of a journalist and interview their parents about their experiences and perceptions of communism. They’re encouraged to ask what their parents know about resistance to the regime.

Of course, the exhibition also touches on the experiences of children imprisoned in places like Pitești Prison. We invite young visitors to reflect on the hardships these children endured, such as being deprived of sleep, being under constant supervision and enduring regular physical abuse. We ask them to imagine: What do you think went through the minds of these children when they couldn’t sleep?

It seems that you aim to emphasise children’s active participation in the learning process, encouraging them to experience it rather than simply receiving information. Could you elaborate on how you present the ideology of communism? You mentioned Karl Marx is part of the exhibition.
MA: We are talking about children who often have no prior knowledge of communism, as the Romanian education system does not address the subject comprehensively or systematically.

We start by explaining that communist ideology sought to unite everyone through revolution, but within this vision lay a deep animosity towards a specific class coupled with the desire to make all people uniform and equal. Rather than focusing on the authors themselves, we present the core ideas. I believe this raises broader questions about what it means to be different and how one can live with that difference. We aim to incorporate a civic dimension into the exhibition, which is why we also discuss children’s rights. For example, we remind them that their parents had to attend school on Saturdays, perform certain tasks for the state – such as picking grapes and harvesting vegetables – and sing songs praising the president’s greatness. We then ask the children: Would you agree to such conditions? How would you feel if you had to live the way your parents or grandparents did?

In Romania, there isn’t much emphasis on civic education, and we want to fill this gap. We hope both parents and teachers will place greater importance on nurturing civic awareness. Civic education is not merely a subject in school – it’s about preparing children for life, for their role in society and even defending themselves when necessary. It’s about ensuring they are ready to navigate the challenges of the world.

Some might argue that discussing such complex and painful periods is unnecessary, especially with children. How would you respond to such remarks?
MA: I offer this analogy: hiding an infected wound only makes the situation worse. The wound needs to be cleaned and treated; only then can healing begin. The process will undoubtedly be painful – touching an infected, festering wound always hurts. But eventually, it will heal, leaving a scar that may even be smaller if treated in time.

Waiting for the wound to turn gangrenous, to the point where an arm or leg must be amputated, is hardly a wise course of action. So much time has passed since communist regimes in Europe collapsed, and yet we have barely begun to address this history openly.

I believe many of the deep traumas and challenges faced by our societies today stem from unresolved issues of the past. In Romania, there is much pride in the country’s liberation from communist rule, but also a lingering sense of guilt for not having done more as a society. We stood by and watched as our neighbours were oppressed, tortured and imprisoned. Even now, we often refuse to discuss these experiences openly. We still refuse to talk about it. If we were to truly confront this history, we would also have to face our own uncomfortable feelings and fears. These unresolved emotions fester if left unspoken. Without addressing them, we cannot move forwards. Open dialogue, however painful, is the only path towards genuine healing and progress.

What reactions have you received from the public and the children who visit the museum?
MA: We haven’t encountered any negative reactions, which suggests that society is now more prepared for such an initiative and, in some ways, already familiar with our work.

What surprised me most were the reactions of the children – they knew more than we had expected. Of course, before creating the museum, we conducted various activities and focus groups with children, involving about 3,000 participants. This gave us some insight into what children think, but they still managed to surprise us.

Interestingly, we realised that it’s not only children but also adults who often don’t really know what communism as an ideology was. In fact, when we began working on the museum, we often encountered the phrase, ‘Communism was a great idea, but it was poorly implemented in practice.’ From my perspective, that’s simply not true. This idea was never good to begin with. Perhaps we are inclined to believe in the ideals of communism because, in reality, we don’t know much about them. That’s precisely why we wanted to address this in our museum – to provide a space for reflection and understanding about the true nature of communism and its impact.

Romania and Lithuania share some similar historical experiences. In Lithuania, there is currently much debate about the past, with ongoing disputes regarding the memory of Lithuanian figures who served the Communist Party. For example, Antanas Venclova was a poet and literary critic, but also a political figure. In Vilnius, there is still a museum dedicated not only to him but also to his son, Tomas Venclova – a poet, dissident and exile from the USSR to the United States. The museum is located in their former home, which also carries interwar history. As a professional in the museum field, how would you approach such a museum?
MA: Today, cancel culture has gained popularity, but it’s something I personally reject. It erases certain moments from history. If we want to critically engage with history, we must first understand it. Without knowledge, and by selectively focusing only on aspects that seem worth discussing, we are not dealing with true history.

We face a similar situation in Romania regarding a poet who was favourable to the regime and his associated museum. It’s essential to recognise these individuals, to understand their actions and choices. Regarding the family you mentioned, we can address the different dimensions of their lives. Every individual is a person with a history, a family and the capacity to love their children. At the same time, we must also highlight their misdeeds and moral failings. I don’t believe abolishing a museum is a valuable solution. Far more important is fostering dialogue about it and the complex choices people had to make.

It seems to me that this lesson is powerfully reflected in the phenomenon of Pitești Prison: you never truly know who you are or how you might act until you find yourself in a difficult situation. In such moments, you see yourself stripped of embellishments, and what you discover may not always be pleasant. After all, in Pitești Prison, individuals who were once friends turned on each other. These were remarkable people, and even after enduring the horrors of this brutal experimental prison, they went on to lead lives without harming others. Yet, their actions within the prison cannot be erased from their past. At the Pitești Prison Museum, we pursue a similar mission: to show that the conditions these people faced were fundamentally unjust, regardless of who they were.



This interview was first published on the portal www.lrt.lt on 16 June 2024: Komunizmo muziejaus vaikams kūrėja: pūliuojančios žaizdos slėpimas tik pablogina situaciją
Photo of the publication The Spirit of Helsinki in Action: Persevering with a Visioning Process in Northern Ireland
Ben Acheson

The Spirit of Helsinki in Action: Persevering with a Visioning Process in Northern Ireland

30 June 2025
Tags
  • European Remembrance Symposium
  • Helsinki Final Act

Creativity. Ideation. Vision. Do not to stick to the status quo. Find inspiration from different processes. Seek out alternative routes. Take a chance on new thinking. These were constantly recurring themes at the International Conference on the 50th Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. One speaker, referring to current geopolitical trends, summed up a clear consensus:

“Yes, invest in defence. But also invest in ideas.” 1

The conference, hosted by the European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity between June 10-13th 2025, in Helsinki, marked the 50th anniversary of the agreement signed by 35 political leaders from Europe, the USSR, North America and Canada, which developed a framework for détente in Europe that became a key milestone in ending the Cold War. Almost all sessions of the conference referred to today’s geopolitical turmoil, with participants urging leaders to reignite the ‘Spirit of Helsinki’ and use the Final Act as inspiration.

The Keynote Speaker, Michael Cotey Morgan 2, underlined that creating a Helsinki-like process today may seem unlikely, if not impossible. But it also looked impossible just a few years before the Final Act was signed in 1975. His point was that no matter how bleak the environment, or how constrained the space for diplomacy, events can change quickly. That’s why it is crucial to create what he called “visions of the future” – and to do so in advance of opportunities arising. His point prompted a simple question from the audience:

“How?”

Are there tangible ways to create visions? Are there tools? How did the Helsinki Final Act participants shape visions of the future? Cotey Morgan explained how the “process of imagining” was “messy, boring and lengthy.” It involved meeting after meeting after meeting, stacks of paper and a never-ending stream of documents and proposals. At its heart was “a collision of a plurality of ideas” and importantly, a willingness to tolerate a clash of ideas.

The arguments in fact generated and refined ideas. Cotey Morgan underlined that the imagining process – at least among Western actors – was successful exactly because it was painful, and boring. Conversely, the creative of process of Warsaw Pact countries was a more cautionary tale because there was unchallenged direction from the top rather than any collaborative, or argumentative, back-and-forth. Other speakers agreed with Cotey Morgan’s advice, reiterating the need for plurality of voices and pointing out that creating visions need not wait for specific moments as we are “always in some sort of new beginning” 3 and “action-oriented people will never have all of the information available.” 4 It was advice which sparked memories of another of Europe’s late 20th Century success stories – the peace process in Northern Ireland.

If a case study is ever needed to answer the ‘How?’ of vision creation, Northern Ireland is ideal. In 1975, as the Helsinki Final Act was signed, Northern Ireland was gripped by violent sectarian conflict. Combatants continued killing while politicians could not even sit in the same room. But, as we know now, just over two decades later Northern Ireland transitioned from a sad stalemate to a comprehensive peace deal – the 1998 Good Friday Agreement – and an ongoing process of peacebuilding. It was creativity, ideation and vision that set Northern Ireland on its way. In hindsight, there was a tangible visioning ‘process’ from which insights can still be offered.

Northern Ireland demonstrates that visioning is a process of honest internal discussions within various parties, to identify end-states that are plausible, probable and preferred. The aim is to articulate a desired future, including steps and goals to achieve it. It sounds so simple that it cannot possibly influence such a strategic change as ending a conflict. But the internal discussion in Northern Ireland started to shift mindsets. It made key actors consider their situation and why they were in it. It led to new questions being asked about old problems, including the nature and validity of the struggle. Parties started to imagine the kind of peace they wanted to create and what the public would accept. It started a process of transformation within their own community long before they engaged 'the other'.

By doing this, leaders ascertained what issues their own people would accept movement on once negotiations began. This helped the public feel engaged and reduced feelings of neglect. It prepared everyone for inevitable compromises. In hindsight, visioning was early preparation for negotiations, even if those doing it may not have recognised this at the time.

As these conversations evolved and developed, they were written down in so-called ‘visionary documents’. Some were succinct descriptions of a particular party’s views and needs. Others were comprehensive and included steps for creating peace 5. Some documents were secret but many were published. This enabled other actors to read them, and rival views were digested with vigour. Some wrote responses, published counter-papers or held their own debates. That sparked conferences, seminars and studies on similar topics. A new atmosphere of discussion emerged. Some of the follow-on initiatives were spontaneous, like internal discussions and roundtables. Others were more structured. But all added to the debate.

These visioning documents and other initiatives were instrumental tools in sparking a national conversation, advancing discussion from ‘we want peace’ to ‘this is why and how we want it’. Over the next few years, the responses, seminars, conferences and commentary provided a wealth of views to compare. That coincided with the start of secret and then public negotiations between the main parties. By then the information gleaned via the visioning process enabled identification of common ground. It became clear what issues needed to be on the negotiation table versus those able to be dealt with in working groups or elsewhere. This made the prospect of negotiations less daunting for all.

By the time negotiators took their seats, the visioning process had given everyone an idea of what peace would actually look like. It was less abstract. Politicians, paramilitaries and the public moved thinking beyond a sole focus on the risks and red-lines, which were becoming a tool for spoilers and an excuse for non-negotiation. Mindsets shifted from thinking of peace in terms of loss to what they could gain.

Northern Ireland, and its visioning process, exemplifies the advice that multiple speakers gave at the International Conference on the 50th Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. It reflects Michael Cotey Morgan’s observation that success can be painful, and boring, because it requires meeting upon meeting upon meeting. Piles of proposals. Forests-worth of documents. What Northern Ireland and the Helsinki Final Act both underline is how important it is to invest in ideas. But in both cases, to use Cotey Morgan’s phrase, it was the “willingness to outlast” that led to a degree of success that had been unimaginable just a few years prior.

The conference was a timely reminder that invoking the Spirit of Helsinki requires commitment to creativity, ideation and vision. But success also hinges on equally important element:

Perseverance.



1 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Åbo Akademi, Turku.
2 Michael Cotey Morgan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
3 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Åbo Akademi, Turku.
4 Ibid.
5 Examples online include: ‘Common Sense: Northern Ireland - An Agreed Process' (UPRG 1987), 'A Scenario for Peace' (Sinn Fein 1987).
Photo of the publication Reflections and Recollections
Jan Rydel

Reflections and Recollections

27 June 2025
Tags
  • ENRS 20

The beginnings of my close connection with the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity are linked to an event that is profoundly tragic, namely the plane crash in Smolensk on 10 April 2010. Among its victims was Minister Andrzej Przewoźnik, who led the negotiations on the Polish side that resulted in the establishment of our Network and was its first Polish coordinator. Andrzej Przewoźnik was an exceptional figure on the Polish political scene, as he effectively directed what we now call the memory policy of this country since the transformation, for nearly twenty years. The uniqueness of his position lay in the fact that he built his unassailable standing in a very divided and contentious political environment and society.

The same plane crash claimed the life of the outstanding Deputy Minister of Culture, Tomasz Merta, who had made the decision just a few days before his tragic death to establish the Secretariat of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity and to appoint Rafał Rogulski as its director. A few weeks after the deaths of Andrzej Przewoźnik and Tomasz Merta, I was appointed Polish coordinator of the Network by decision of the Minister of Culture, Bogdan Zdrojewski.

Looking back, I believe that in the Network we have not betrayed the legacy of the personalities I have mentioned here, whom we always remember with respect and a sense of loss.

We act with the conviction that international dialogue, even about the most difficult, traumatic events from 20th-century history, based on truth, whose criterion is primarily compliance with the state of scientific research on the subject, can open the way to overcoming the frequent antagonisms, prejudices stemming from the past, and false historical narratives that are so prevalent in Europe now. The aggression of Russia against Ukraine, which we have witnessed for over three years now, is frightening evidence of how a distorted, false Russian vision of history, based on erroneous assumptions, is turning into a dangerous weapon.

Overcoming past conflicts and disputes, to be effective, cannot rely on silence and the denial of uncomfortable facts, but rather on their thorough, mutual understanding and the social internalization of that knowledge. What I am talking about is a process that must last many, many years; for this reason, we have not been, and are not, advocates of imposing on Europe ad hoc, ideologically motivated, supposedly common historical narratives. For the same reason, the members of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, while not losing sight of the traditions and interests of their own country, must be apolitical in their own way because, as I mentioned, achieving the goals for which we have been appointed will take much longer than even the longest term of any democratically elected government, and frankly, longer than the duration of our professional life.

We owe our governments gratitude for understanding not only the need for the existence of our Network but also the special conditions of our work mentioned here. I would like to cite the example of Poland: every Polish government we have dealt with has contributed, either organizationally or financially, to increasing the potential of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. We owe our gratitude to all six Polish ministers of culture and their excellent collaborators!

However, enough of these rather serious reflections.
I remember the beginnings of the Network's Secretariat, which then consisted of the director, Rafał Rogulski, Agnieszka Mazur-Olczak, who is still with us today, and one more colleague. The Secretariat was then located in two office rooms and was dependent on another Polish cultural institution for organizational and accounting matters, which was inconvenient and burdensome. Today, thanks to the vision of what the Network can and should be, the unwavering energy, and the excellent communication skills of Director Rafał Rogulski, the Institute of the European Network of Remembrance and Solidarity has nearly thirty wonderful collaborators and occupies an entire floor in an office building that itself is a lieu de mémoire of Polish history in the 20th century.

The Network team consists of amazing young and very young people whose skills and talents often simply make me shy. As part of our Network's mission, they have already organized hundreds of events, located between Tbilisi and Barcelona, between Sarajevo and Tirana, as well as Dublin and Helsinki. We have already reached Japan, and soon we will be present at the UN in New York.

I fondly remember our lively discussions with Professor Matthias Weber and Dr. Burkhard Olschowski about what truth in history is and whether it even exists. With gratitude, I recall our meeting with sociologists Dr. Joanna Wawrzyniak and Dr. Małgorzata Pakier, which resulted in the Network initiating a series of annual scientific conferences on memory, history, and memory politics under the collective title Genealogies of Memory. This series, at a time when the concepts of memory politics and historical politics were seen as suspicious and contested, provided the Network with a strong intellectual foundation.

I smile recalling our first trip to the Ústav pamäti národa (the Slovak National Memory Institute) in Bratislava, the Slovak partner of the Network, to discuss the conditions for the practical cooperation that was just beginning. Both we and our Slovak partners and friends assumed that Slovaks and Poles, speaking such closely related languages, would always understand each other, and we did not take care to provide professional translation during the discussions. I remember the shock we experienced when, after exchanging pleasantries, we sat down to discussions and found that we absolutely did not understand the formal legal and financial terminology in our partner's language.

I cannot fail to mention the role of Professor Attila Pók, the first Hungarian coordinator of the Network, who works with us to this day. His vast experience, kindness, and tactfulness have often allowed us to conclude particularly heated debates and find solutions in complicated situations.

I have devoted a considerable, non-negligible part of my professional life and a large part of my heart to the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. I have been, in part, a participant and, in part, an observer of its emergence, its organizational childhood, and then its creative adulthood. Therefore, allow me to conclude by wishing all its collaborators and friends, as well as myself, that the Network endures and develops not only now, when only hard power is beginning to count in the world, but also when our successors and the successors of our successors take the helm of this organization!


Jan Rydel, Kraków – Warszawa, 25 June 2025
Photo of the publication Our Familys Story in the Second World War
Franziska Niehoff

Our Family's Story in the Second World War

27 May 2025
Tags
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • First award

Franziska Niehoff
Germany

Photo of the publication Dear Giuseppe
Giuseppe Francavilla

Dear Giuseppe

27 May 2025
Tags
  • Second World
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • Honourable Mention

Giuseppe Francavilla
Italy

My grandfather Joseph fought both world wars. The second as a lieutenant in the army. He was taken prisoner by the Nazis and liberated as a translator of French for them. He always had a great passion for foreign languages and in fact they saved his life. After that he flight in the United States to study and there he obtained two degrees. Grandfather Joseph was also an avid writer.

He wrote essays, short stories and was also a poet. In these photos you can see the typewriter he used, an Olivetti.

When my grandfather Giuseppe welcomed the guests in his study he always kept the door closed. And many times I stopped staring at his shadow from behind the glass. I always have the impression to see him every time his son Augustus, then my uncle, passes behind that door. It's a bit like seeing him again at home.

Photo of the publication Bolek: My Great-Grandfathers Brother
Aleksander Tylman

Bolek: My Great-Grandfather's Brother

27 May 2025
Tags
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • Honourable Mention

Aleksander Tylman
Poland

This photograph features my great-grandfather, Kazimierz (in the back) and one of his brothers, Bolesław, called Bolek, during a Sunday stroll in Ozorków in late 1930s. 
All of the siblings shared a passion for newly available photography and Bolek, as my grandpa recalled, ”was the happiest and the most handsome one.” During the second world war, Bolek kept his job in the city hall’s road department, but worked in conspiracy against the Germans, passing on secret information. During spring of 1942 was exposed and arrested along with his colleagues from Łódź. He died later that year after a brutal interrogation in the headquarters of Gestapo, leaving behind his wife and daughter.  The headquarters, nowadays a school, is two steps from my current flat and every time I pass by it during my Sunday strolls, I can’t help remembering this story. The cheerful family time seen in the photographs my ancestors left behind was forever broken, which was a case for many civilian families in Poland during the war.

Although it is not easy to put together the facts, I keep researching the archives to recreate as much of his life’s story as possible. The least that can be done is to remember.

Photo of the publication My Great-Great-Grandfather: Wawrzyniec Lubiński
Izabela Grzelak

My Great-Great-Grandfather: Wawrzyniec Lubiński

27 May 2025
Tags
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • Honourable Mention

Izabela Grzelak
Poland

I have one photo of my great-great-grandfather Wawrzyniec Lubiński. The family told a story about him: he went to war and never came back. He left his wife and a baby girl who never knew her father. The case remained unsolved for years. His only daughter died in February 2024. I promised her that I would try to find out what happened to her dad. I looked through hundreds of archived civil status records.

It worked!

I already know that Wawrzyniec was born on 5 September 1906 in Mochowo (in Mazovia) and died on 21 September 1939 in Zamość near Lublin. The district court confirmed his death, but we don’t know the circumstances of his death. I can check it in the state archives. Perhaps my hypothesis will be confirmed that Wawrzyniec died fighting the Germans in Zamość. How did he get there? Does he have his grave in the Lublin region? I’m proud of the results of my research. Unfortunately my great-grandmother didn’t know them during her lifetime.

Photo of the publication Victor: A Soldiers Story
Luba and Eugene Ostashevsky, Igor Karash

Victor: A Soldier's Story

27 May 2025
Tags
  • Second World
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • Honourable Mention

A graphic memoir.
Written by Luba and Eugene Ostashevsky.
Illustrated by Igor Karash.

Our project is a graphic novel about our grandfather, Victor Torkanovsky, who served in the Soviet Army during WWII. It recounts Victor's experiences from 1941, when he signed up to serve at the war's outbreak; to his participation in two major battles: the defense of Leningrad and the battle of Stalingrad; to his service in Central Asia and in Ukraine, where he visits his family home. He began the war as a gangly university student with bottle thick glasses and emerged as a hardened soldier.

Our grandfather was one of tens of millions traumatized by the war. Researching his story made us see the war's toll on people. Victor nearly starved to death; he experienced aerial bombardment and was shot; he watched his friends die. He was also thrust into morally compromising situations: drafted into the NKVD (secret police), he was forced to arrest his childhood nanny as well as shoot people suspected of being saboteurs. In Central Asia, during the Kalmyk rebellion, he captured German prisoners and executed them. Interviewing him, we saw how deeply he still felt the events of the war, even 65 years later, with feelings of deep remorse and sadness.

If he had lived in the west, he would have been able to talk about his experiences openly. However, in the Soviet Union, veterans' narratives were eclipsed by official propaganda and many took their secrets to their graves.

We hope that our rendering of Victor's service can shed light on real events and bring the tough reality of what that generation experienced to the attention of young people today, who know little about it and are not prone to reading lengthy historical volumes. This is why we chose the medium of a graphic novel. We hope that its visual and succinct approach can transport readers back and provide a vivid and memorable story to which they can relate and from which they can learn.

Photo of the publication My Great-Granduncle Stanisław Dobrzeniecki
Daria Grzelak

My Great-Granduncle Stanisław Dobrzeniecki

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Poland
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition

Daria Grzelak
Poland

In the photo there is a man standing in a group of photographed people (third from the right). This is my great-grandmother's oldest brother – Stanisław Dobrzeniecki. He was born on 28 November 1900 in Lisewo Wielkie (currently Gozdowo commune) as the second child among eleven offspring of the mayor of the Lisewo commune and at the same time the heir to the village of Lisewo. The handwritten description of the photograph with a dedication to his younger brother Edward, was very valuable. This man was a soldier in the The Home Army (AK) during World War II with the alias- Titan. The lack of a postage stamp and address suggests that the photo was attached to the letter. Stanisław happily returned home, where his wife and three children were waiting for him. During the war, he lost his hearing in an explosion. He died on 28 November 2000 in the Sierpc hospital on the day he was discharged home. At home, his family was waiting for him with a party to celebrate his 100th birthday.

Photo of the publication The “Rooted” Project
Class 2A at Primary School No. 110, Kraków

The “Rooted” Project

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Poland
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition

The “Rooted” Project is a collaborative initiative by the students of Class 2A at Primary School No. 110, Rev. Jan Twardowski, Kraków.

Project Coordinator: Elżbieta Rzepecka
Teacher of History and Early Primary Education

The aim of the project is to provide patriotic education in accordance with the current priorities established by the Ministry of National Education. The project has been preceded by history classes for upper grades during which students were eager to share their personal stories, pictures, and information about their ancestors. Due to an insufficient number of history classes, I decided to introduce extended knowledge in the area of patriotic education for the second grade. It will involve children (and parents) finding their ancestors, who have often left their mark on Polish history. The children will have a unique opportunity to prepare their family tree (interactive or traditional), with an emphasis on identifying someone who has made a significant mark in the history of their family, their city, or their homeland.

Together, we will write the history of such “forgotten” heroes, since history often remains silent about those who shed their blood. We do not know the names of those who participated in uprisings and wars or those who undertook sabotage actions during the occupation, yet we know that such heroes were part of our families. Without a doubt, the added value of this innovation is discovering such heroes and the historical circumstances they lived through. Given the fading of national values and the blurring of borders, national identity is particularly important. Patriotic education from an early age will allow us to raise a generation that is proud of its history and not ashamed to say and feel Polish. This is especially true in families where the spirit of a hero has lived for generations, so that the children's roots—the foundation of everything—remain consistent and stable, taking root permanently in our homeland, wherever life takes our young citizens.

Photo of the publication A Wartime Letter
Alicja Śmiejkowska

A Wartime Letter

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Poland
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition

Alicja Śmiejkowska
Poland

Memory and history are the foundations of our personal and collective identity. Family stories shape our values and cultural traditions, and archival documents offer priceless insight into the past. Letters, for instance, let us glimpse the emotions and experiences of people who lived before us. Each of us can help preserve history by safeguarding family keepsakes.

One such keepsake in my family is a letter written to my grandfather, Henryk Kamiński, by his friend “Kuba” on 14 February 1943 in Warsaw. I discovered it in 1994, after my grandfather’s death, while sorting through his home library. The letter lay between pages 22–23 of Akcja pod Arsenałem by Stanisław Broniewski (Stefan Orsza), published by Iskry in 1957. I believe Granddad placed it there intentionally.

Photo of the publication “Łęg” National Memorial Site in Suszec
Martyna Dąbek

“Łęg” National Memorial Site in Suszec

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Poland
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition

Martyna Dąbek
Poland

Photo of the publication My Grandmother’s Childhood
Lena Sulz

My Grandmother’s Childhood

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Poland
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition
  • Siberia

Lena Sulz
Poland/Germany

During the last school holidays I stayed in Warsaw with my grandmother Basia. We spent long evenings talking about our family—her parents, how she met my grandfather, our ancestors, and countless family stories.

One day we went to Café Nero for Grandma’s favourite coffee, while I sipped a smoothie and ate a warm baguette sandwich. That was when I asked her how she had spent her own childhood: what she did at my age, where she went to school, and the name of her best friend.

Grandma hesitated to revisit those years, and I did not understand why. Eventually she took a little calendar from her handbag; tucked behind the cover was a small blue booklet, worn and fragile, like an old identity card. She began to talk. Wanting to preserve her memories, I decided to film her with my phone so I could take the recording back to Germany, show it to my older sister Maja and to Dad—and perhaps use it later in Polish history class. Our history teacher once said that if our grandparents are still alive, they could visit the Polish school in Germany and share their childhood stories.

Grandma insisted we should remember the good things; the episode she was about to tell had never been a happy memory for her family, who had tried to forget it. She herself knew the story only from her mother’s account—she had been far too young to remember any of it.

I was hearing it for the first time. Grandma Basia was born in 1938, just before World War II. Her parents were well educated, owned a large house, employed a nanny and a housekeeper, and my great-grandfather Tadeusz Koryciński managed an arms factory in Kraśnik.

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the factory began to evacuate east. On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union attacked as well, dismantled the plant within days, and deported the workers and their families deep into Russia.

Great-Grandfather Tadeusz, his wife Władysława, their baby daughter (my grandma), and the child’s nanny were transported to Siberia. Tadeusz’s sisters, Alina and Stefania Breyer, missed the train and thus remained in Poland.

Grandma—barely a year old—travelled in a freight wagon thousands of kilometres east. The cars, meant for animals, had no windows, no seats, no heat. Passengers sat on the floor through a journey that lasted weeks, given only an occasional slice of bread and a little water. They finally disembarked in Novosibirsk, some 4,000 km from Warsaw.

The Soviets ordered everyone off the train to fend for themselves. To cross the River Ob, Great-Grandfather built a raft. The family boarded it, but the craft broke apart; Grandma, her mother, and the nanny were swept one way, her father another. The current was strong, and they remained separated for a month before finding one another in an area where Poles were being forced to work.

They were assigned to the collective farm “Krasny Partizan” near Novosibirsk. Great-Grandmother and Great-Grandfather laboured for nothing but a slice of bread and a few carrots.

Grandma recalls that she was always hungry. She and her younger brother Czesław—born in Siberia in 1940—constantly begged their mother for food, saying that the mothers who had stayed in Poland gave their children something to eat. All they had was a weed called goosefoot, boiled into soup. At five she began primary school in Siberia, quickly mastering Russian and becoming a top pupil. Her sister Krystyna was born there in 1943.

The family endured seven years of forced labour and Siberian winters. When the Polish Kościuszko Division formed in the USSR, Great-Grandfather Tadeusz enlisted; military service was the only hope of bringing families home. He fought all the way to Berlin and was awarded the Cross of Grunwald in spring 1946. That year his family returned from Siberia and settled in Końskie, where Great-Grandmother’s parents lived. Two more sons were born after the war—Piotr in 1947 and Aleksander in 1950. Of all the children, only Grandma, Aunt Krystyna, and Uncle Czesław survived the ordeal in distant Siberia.

Grandma came back to Poland malnourished, with health and skin problems caused by hunger, filth, and poverty. When relatives met them at the railway station, the family were so exhausted, dirty, and ragged that no one recognised them. For many years they were forbidden to speak of what had happened. Only when my mother was at school did Grandma receive her Sybirak (Siberian Exile) identity card, and reunions were organised for those who, like her, had been deported.

Grandma’s story moved me deeply. I listened carefully and asked whether she had any keepsakes from that time. I had never heard her speak of it before, nor had I known that my grandmother was a Sybiraczka—a survivor of Siberian exile.

Photo of the publication World War II: The Echo of Our Ancestors Reliving
Maria Palamarciuc

World War II: The Echo of Our Ancestors' Reliving

25 May 2025
Tags
  • Romania
  • Second World War
  • "Grandparents. Grand Stories" competition

“The history of our ancestors is like a wall built from the pages of the past”

Maria Palamarciuc
Romania

During World War II, my great-grandfather, my grandmother’s father, Emilian, fought in this war. Unfortunately, the population of his native village suffered a lot, impoverished many families and lost many people in the hungry years of 1946-1947.

When my great-grandfather was at the front, he broke two fingers on his right hand and also then, he met Leica , a Romanian Jew who was to be killed by the soldiers. My great-grandmother, Maria, took care of her and hid her in a cellar near their house. While Leica sewed day and night to forget the pain she suffered , my great-grandfather trained with army in a forest called "Gypsy”, where they learned to shoot from the gun.

After two weeks of training, he was sent by train to Germany, where he stayed for 40 days. While he was there, a close relative of his, Moș Petre, was also taken into the army, but a commander chose who to take. Namely, he was sent to a town close to his village. There, he worked for a German family in agriculture. After a few years, the owner of the land came and asked Moș Petre if he wanted to stay with him or go home. He decided to go home, but what do you think, when he arrived he found his wife and children dead and the house destroyed. Being alone, he remarried an old woman and they had three children.

After the war ended, my great-grandfather was brought from Germany to the hospital in Harmațca to have his wounds treated. There, the screams of pain from the patients could be heard, their legs or arms were broken. Few survived, it was one of the most cruel wars in all of humanity. And every day, my great-grandmother would say some verses she had invented:

“Sister, little one,
Tie up his wound nicely.
So that daddy can come home,
And we can sit happily at the table..."

After my great-grandfather returned, Leica had long since fled, and he lived his life to a ripe old age.