Transmission: From Experience to Awareness: Jewish Children Hidden in France and Their Children

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research was to attempt to understand how the experience of having been a Jewish child hidden in France during the Occupation was transmitted to offspring. This analysis is based on research carried out among former hidden Jewish children, and the therapeutic follow-up provided in the setting of our clinical activities. The psychopathology of the first generation plays a role in the transmission process. The transmission of their history is also a source of ambivalence. This study shows how important it is to consider the complexity of personal histories and the distortions attendant on the transmission of these histories.

KEYWORDS:

• Affiliation
• hidden Jewish children
• identity
• transmission
• trauma

Notes

Jewish association, which opened children’s homes during and after the war.

A children’s home of Communist obedience.

Charles De Gaulle was the president of the French Republic between 1958 and 1965, and from 1966 to 1969.

Raymond Barre was the Prime Minister of the French Government between 1976 and 1981.

1980 Paris synagogue bombing.

François Mitterand was the president of the French Republic between 1981 and 1995.

Philippe Pétain was the chief of the French Government (called also Vichy Government, which collaborated with Nazis) between 1940 and 1944.

Jacques Chirac was the president of the French Republic between 1995 and 2007.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marion Feldman

Marion Feldman, PhD is working in the area of child protection, takes a particular interest in the clinical aspects of affiliations and in the impact of collective history on family functioning and the individual construction of the child. She has authored numerous articles and has published four books on these issues.

Hana Rottman

Hana Rottman, has published numerous articles and contributed to several publications on fostering. Alongside, she is working as a psychotherapist and continues to organise training and supervision programmes. She is honorary president of the Réseau d’Intervenants en Accueil Familial pour Enfants á dimension Thérapeutique (RIAFET).