As the children of the Holocaust reach adulthood, they often need professional help in establishing a new identity and self-esteem. During their childhood their parents have unconsciously transmitted to them much of their own trauma, investing them with all their memories and hopes, so that they become 'memorial candles' to those who did not survive. The book combines verbatim transcriptions of dialogues in individual and group psychotherapy sessions with analyses of dreams, fantasies and childhood memories. Diana Wardi traces the emotional history of her patients, accompanying them on a painful and moving journey into their inner world. She describes the children's infancy in the guilt-laden atmosphere of survivor families, through to their difficult separation from their parents in maturity. she also traces in detail the therapeutic process which culminates in the patients' separation from the role of 'memorial candle'.
Biography
Born in Italy in 1938, Dina Wardi was taken to Israel by her Zionist parents at the age of one year and thus escaped the fate of her people in the Holocaust. She lives in Jerusalem, where she conducts her psychotherapeutic practice.
` ... great value to all those whose work brings them face to face with the traumatic effects of the Holocaust upon survivors of all nationalities and their children ... special interest to those involved in the study of post-traumatic stress in general and intergenerational trauma transmission in particular.' - American Academy of Psychoanalysis Journal
`A powerful, richly informative book.' - Jewish Chronicle
