In the quiet solitude of Friday nights, the Sabbath candles are lit, casting a gentle glow as ancient blessings resonate in the air. Yet, this sacred ritual is steeped in a profound loneliness, a weekly mourning for the family that was lost, for the biological bonds fractured by unspeakable acts. Like the generations before, the echoes of intense human evil reverberate through the soul, a legacy unwittingly inherited.
Life, in its cruel irony, holds memories that simultaneously sustain and threaten to extinguish the very will to live.
Holidays, meant for joyous gatherings, become poignant reminders of a past that exists only as a shimmering mirage. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur evoke fleeting images of childhood innocence – skipping to synagogue, parents leading the way with prayer shawls and books, sisters trailing behind, carefully avoiding sidewalk cracks. But this idyllic scene is juxtaposed with the stark reality of an unwritten hell, a terrifying world suppressed for years, threatening to resurface.
Nazi uniforms, barbed wire fences, gas ovens, and bloodied carcasses – horrific images from a bygone era, seared into the mind of a child. The author was forced into a role of the “humiliated,” subjected to a Jewish bondage within a Nazi-like world, a child trapped in an adult’s perversion. The innocence of childhood was brutally violated through repeated sexual abuse – a hard, forceful penis, burning the throat, tearing the vagina, the anus, shattering the heart and any semblance of trust in adults.
Seeking answers in a world devoid of explanations, the author found no solace. Jewish families were portrayed as sanctuaries, safe havens against anti-Semitism. But where could one turn when the threat resided within the Jewish family itself, when the father, the supposed protector, became the perpetrator of unspeakable acts?
Immigrants in the late 1940s, the parents arrived in Canada from displaced persons camps, strangers to the language and culture of their new home. They leaned on their children, seeking understanding and support. The children became guides to this unfamiliar Gentile world, introducing them to nursery rhymes and classic literature. Roles were reversed; children became parents to their own parents. This isolated family unit, forged by external forces, became a breeding ground for unspeakable crimes. How could a child dare to cry out “rape,” to expose the horrors perpetrated by her own parents?
At 17, when the author finally mustered the courage to flee, her father’s accusation echoed the trauma of generations: “TRAITOR.” In his Holocaust-tainted worldview, anyone who willingly left the family fold was nothing less than a betrayer, a stark reminder of the immense loss he had endured, where nearly his entire extended family perished.
Intellectually, the author grapples with understanding her father’s actions. By inflicting upon her the very horrors he endured in the camps, he cathartically relived his own pain and degradation. He seized control in a situation where he had been utterly powerless. The child prostitute for the Gestapo transformed into the master, the starving waif became the careless cook, throwing food at his hungry daughter, only to beat her for eating it moments later.
Even now, the past intrudes upon the present. There are days when the author is transported back to 1943, to Auschwitz or Dachau, engulfed in panic. Headaches, blurred vision, racing heartbeat, and overwhelming nausea become physical manifestations of a past that refuses to stay buried. She exists in two unreconciled worlds, forever straddling the present and the horrors of the past.
While acknowledging her father as a victim of unimaginable atrocities, forgiveness for the violations inflicted upon her body remains elusive. Rage simmers beneath the surface, a constant reminder of the injustice of being made to suffer as he did.
The Unfathomable Question: Why?
For a time, the Holocaust served as an explanation, a warped justification for her father’s actions. But conversations with other children of Holocaust survivors revealed a different truth: many men who endured the camps did not become sexual abusers. The Holocaust, while a profound trauma, could not be accepted as an excuse for personal victimization.
Six years of slave labor instilled in her father an obsessive need for control. In a patriarchal, adult-centric society, he wielded his power over his young, female children. Had society valued women and children, had victims of Nazism been seen as worthy of respect, perhaps the Holocaust itself could have been averted. Perhaps, had her father not been so brutally tortured, her story would not be one of sexual abuse.
“Perhaps,” “if,” “maybe” – these words hint at possibilities beyond pain, but offer no definitive answers. The author acknowledges the futility of speculation, yet it remains easier to deflect blame – to point to patriarchy, to the Holocaust – than to confront the stark reality: her father was a rapist.
Ironically, the survival skills learned from her parents, forged in the crucible of trauma, became her own lifeline during years of abuse. A keen sense of timing, an acute awareness of danger, and the ability to avoid it became ingrained survival mechanisms. As a child, she developed a detached demeanor, a neutral presence amidst macabre reality, suppressing almost all emotion.
When questioned about the long-term effects of these early experiences, the response is sardonic: neither incest nor the Holocaust were mere “early experiences.” They are a way of life, their echoes reverberating endlessly within her being.
Flashbacks punctuate daily life, intruding on intimacy, haunting dreams, and disrupting mundane routines. Scenes of early rapes surface during sexual encounters. Nightmares are frequent companions. Even in the midst of everyday activities – reading, shopping, eating – auditory and visual memories erupt unbidden. The sight of uniforms, the sound of police sirens trigger visceral reactions. Obsessive checking behaviors manifest – arriving early to assess potential danger, compulsively searching behind doors and in cupboards, expecting lurking evil. Hands instinctively clench into fists, a physical manifestation of the simmering fury against perpetrators of abuse. The barbed wire fences of childhood trauma remain invisible yet palpable boundaries. Trapped by the ghosts of a tormented generation, she at times inhabits the painful past that rightfully belongs to her parents.
Parallels of Trauma: Incest and the Holocaust
Analyzing the parallels between incest and Holocaust survivorship reveals a disturbing mirroring between father and daughter. Her father’s survival of genocide is intertwined with profound guilt – why him, when so many others perished? Similarly, the author grapples with survivor’s guilt, a heavy burden for sisters still trapped in the family home. How did she escape the prison that continues to hold them captive? Why hasn’t she done more to rescue them?
A shared sense of imminent danger permeates their lives, a constant vigilance that makes it impossible to fully embrace the present. Her father’s habit of carrying pumpernickel bread in his pockets, a symbolic preparation for an unknown threat, mirrors her own hypervigilance. Even in absence, her father’s existence remains a threat, a constant reminder of potential danger, preventing true peace.
Another shared experience is the absence of models of resistance. Her father, like many Holocaust survivors, was unaware of Jewish resistance in ghettos and camps. Their heroic past was erased, leaving only the image of victimhood. Similarly, as an incest survivor, the author lacked knowledge of women and girls who fought back against their abusers.
Both Holocaust and incest survivors confront “revisionists” – deniers of their lived realities. Neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust; her own mother dismisses the sexual abuse as a figment of imagination. These twin hells are so horrific that denial becomes a coping mechanism, not only for oppressors and the oppressed, but even for observers.
Betrayal is another haunting parallel. Holocaust survivors often speak of betrayal by fellow Jews. Incest is, by its very nature, a profound betrayal of the most intimate human relationship, a parent’s violation of a child’s trust. When those entrusted with care become perpetrators of harm, where does one turn for solace and support? If not to mothers and fathers, then to whom?
The traumatic events endured by both father and daughter have forged eerily similar psychological patterns. Denial, forgetting, remembering, reliving – a cyclical dance of trauma. For the author, forgetting became a daily necessity, reinforced by societal silence. Distress signals were met with denial: “This doesn’t happen in Jewish families.”
Alone with her secrets, “forgetting” was the only viable coping mechanism. Even as an adult, when memories resurfaced, describing the horrors remained an insurmountable task. In incest survivor groups, details of childhood traumas were deliberately withheld, a self-protective measure against being labeled the “worst case,” against eliciting unwanted pity.
Joining a group of daughters of Holocaust survivors brought a revelation – encountering women who shared similar experiences of paternal sexual abuse. Together, they examine, re-examine, and tentatively journey towards deeper self-understanding. The support of these women empowers the author to speak out, to write about her experiences. Shame and guilt still linger, intertwined with the suffering of past generations. Yet, in the act of writing, she begins to recognize that her own agony is not negated by the agony of her parents. As a second-generation survivor, she confronts the daily struggle to live beyond the horrors of other times, other places, slowly unearthing the last vestiges of war.
And each week, the Sabbath candles are lit, ancient blessings recited, a continued affirmation of the spirit that sustains life, movement, feeling, and existence. This is a journey of unmasking Family Incest, confronting intergenerational trauma, and finding a path towards healing and survival.