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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: RELATIONS OF
PERCEIVED PARENTAL TRAUMATIZATION TO ATTACHMENT
STYLES

presented by
Ellen Berger

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CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: RELATIONS OF PERCEIVED
PARENTAL TRAUMATIZATION TO ATTACHMENT STYLES

By

Ellen Berger

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education

2003

ABSTRACT

CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: RELATIONS OF PERCEIVED
PARENTAL TRAUMATIZATION TO ATTACHMENT STYLES

By

Ellen Berger

Existing research on the effects of the Holocaust on the second generation has
yielded contradictory ﬁndings. It is likely that within-group differences in this
heterogeneous population accounts for some of these contradictory ﬁndings. This study
explores the relationship between perceived parental traumatization from the Holocaust
and attachments to parents and romantic partners. Attachment theory (Ainsworth,
Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1988) is utilized as a theoretical framework.
Numerous studies have shown how attachment style is affected by trauma, as well as how
these effects are transmitted from one generation to the next. The present study will
investigate the relations between a parent’s Holocaust traumatization and their adult

oﬁ‘spring’s attachment style.

This is dedicated to my friend Randy Leipzig, whose adolescent suicide provided an
. enduring lesson on the legacy of trauma.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work has taken many years, and followed many twists and turns. There were
times when I was convinced it would never be done. That it was successﬁilly completed
is due in large part to the support received from many individuals. My dissertation
committee nearly dissolved last year, when two key members left the university. I am
eternally grateful to the remaining members (Dr. Steven Weiland and Dr. Kenneth
Waltzer) as well as the new additions (Dr. Nancy Crewe and Dr. Kenneth Frank) who
stepped up to provide the guidance necessary to complete the task. That they were able
to do so in a kind and supportive manner was an unexpected blessing. Dr. Mario
Mikulincer of Bar Ilan University provided his expertise on attachment-related issues.

He read drafts and shared feedback and I am very grateﬁil for his time and assistance.

I am also grateful to Dr. Stephen Fournier of Brandeis University for his help with
the statistical analyses. He was able to patiently teach me the process so that I
understood which analyses to run and how to run them.

My parents, Myra and Steve Berger, have given me a lifetime of support and
encouragement. Through their love and commitment, they have enabled me to achieve
my goals.

I especially want to thank my b’shert, Dr. David Derr. He has been there for
every step of this grueling process, providing both instrumental and emotional assistance.
He has provided direct assistance with ideas and feedback, as well as indirect assistance
by taking on extra responsibilities around the house to free up my time for this project. I

am grateful for all of his support, and look forward to a future without dissertations!

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES vi
LIST OF FIGURES viii
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 40
CHAPTER 3

METHOD , 62
CHAPTER 4

RESULTS 71
CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION . 99
APPENDIX A

Demographic Questionnaire 116
APPENDIX B

PPHTS 118
APPENDIX C

ECR 124
APPENDIX D

P-AASQ 127
APPENDIX E '

MIS 129

REFERENCES 133

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics .............................................................................. 73
Table 2

Experiences in Close Relationships Avoidance and Anxiety Scales comparison with this
study and college students (Lopez, Mitchell, & Gormley, 2002) ........................... 74
Table 3

Multigenerational Interconnectedness Psychological, Financial, and Functional
Interconnectedness Scales comparison between this study and a previous study (Gavazzi,

Sabatelli, & Reese-Weber, 1999) ................................................................ 75
Table 4

Correlation of Age, Years of Education, and Parents’ Religiosity with Study Variables
........................... 76
Table 5

Study Variable Intercorrelations .................................................................. 78
Table 6

Gender Means and Standard Deviations on Study Variables ................................. 79
Table 7

Comparison of Marital Status with Study Variables ........................................... 80
Table 8

Comparison of Where Participants’ Mothers were born with Study Variables ............ 82
Table 9

Comparison of Where Participants’ Fathers were born with Study Variables ............ 84
Table 10

Comparison of Mother’s Age During the Holocaust with Study Variables ............... 85
Table 11

Comparison of Father’s Age During the Holocaust with Study Variables ................ 86
Table 12

Comparison of Therapy Participation with Study Variables ................................. 88
Table 13

Correlation Matrix of Attachment and Perceived Trauma measures ....................... 90

vi

Table 14

Correlations between each predictor and ECR Avoidant Attachment ..................... 92
Table 15
Correlations between each predictor and ECR Anxious Attachment ...................... 94

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1

ECR Avoidance Standardized Regression Residuals ..................................... 93
Figure 2 .

ECR Anxiety Standardized Regression Residuals ........................................ 95

viii

Chapter 1

Introduction

The Nazi Holocaust was a systematically planned destruction of human life which
began with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and continued until the end of World War H
(WWII), when Germany was defeated and the Allies freed the concentration camps.
Approximately 12 million civilians were killed in the Holocaust, 6 million of them Jews.
Ninety percent of the Jews living in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, and
Austria disappeared (Epstein, 1979). While other groups were targeted for discrimination
and death under Nazi rule, no other group received the level of systematic persecution
and destruction as the Jews.

Anti-Jewish legislation began immediately upon Hitler’s appointment to the
position of Chancellor of Germany. Jewish businesses were boycotted, Jews were
forbidden to work in civil service or the military and were not allowed to practice law
(Dawidowicz, 1975). However, the Holocaust is generally considered to have been
initiated with Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938. On that evening, Jewish homes and
stores were looted. Synagogues and their Torahs, the holy texts, were burned. Jews were
imprisoned and murdered. After this, other restrictions on Jews were gradually
implemented. All Jews were required to wear a yellow star, visible on the outside of their
clothing, with the word “Jude” denoting them as such. Non-Jewish Germans were not
allowed to marry Jews or to frequent their businesses. Jews had to leave their homes and
move into locked ghettos. Later, th ey were rounded up and deported to concentration

camps.

The Survivors

The group of Jewish individuals who survived the Holocaust is a heterogeneous
one. It includes people of various nationalities and social class. A survivor might have
been a wealthy, educated merchant in Germany, who identiﬁed more with being a
German than being a Jew. He/ she might have converted to Catholicism or another
religion and may not have associated with other Jews or considered themselves to be
Jewish. At the other end of the spectrum, the survivor may have been a poor, uneducated
teenager living in a shtetl (an all-Jewish ghetto) in Poland. Some survivors lived through
concentration camps designed for killing, others through labor or slave camps. Still
others lived by hiding in the woods, in a cramped hiding place in someone’s home, or by
obtaining false identity papers. A person now identiﬁed as a survivor may have been a
baby hidden during the Holocaust. The current age ranges, country of residence, and
language of survivors is diverse. Some returned to their home country after the war,
others to the newly formed State of Israel and still others to the United States. Some ﬂed
to South America, which was ironically also the new home of many former Nazis
(Epstein, 1979).

While the majority of Holocaust survivors appear to have suffered greatly from
the Holocaust, there seem to be differences in the ways they coped with the trauma.
Several authors have indicated that survivors who became parents were most likely to
either remain silent about the Holocaust or to talk about it at length, in great detail to their
children (Fogelman, 1992; Rosenbloom, 1995; Wardi, 1994). Some parents, however,
may have been more able to take their childrens’ developmental level into account and to

reveal only what was most appropriate for the child (Rosenbloom, 1995).

Children of Survivors

According to Epstein (1979), survivors’ difﬁculties did not disappear as they
began to raise children. “On the contrary, as the children of survivors began to reach
their teens, coming closer to the age at which their parents were imprisoned, new
problems appeared.” (p. 91). Krystal (1968) reported “We now'see increasing numbers
of children of survivors suffering from problems of depression and inhibition of their
own ﬁrnction” (in Epstein, p. 91).

Thus far, those authors who have studied the effects of the Holocaust on the
second generation within a theoretical framework have typically done so in the
psychoanalytic tradition. Attachment theory (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978;
Bowlby, 1988) describes how individuals’ mental models are created and become self-
perpetuating ways of dealing with others. There is also a great deal of research on how
attachment styles are transmitted intergenerationally. This theory seems particularly
relevant to the population of Holocaust survivors and their children as it speciﬁcally
addresses issues of unresolved trauma and its implications for children of traumatized
parents.

Trauma

Herman (1992) deﬁned psychological trauma as "an affliction of the powerless.
Traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of
control, connection, and meaning" (In Grame, T ortorici, and Healey, 1999, p. 224).
Individuals who survived the Holocaust clearly experienced psychological trauma. They
were rendered powerless by the Nazi regime, and their "ordinary systems of care" were

overwhelmed.

Children of Holocaust survivors, (COS), then, were raised by trauma survivors.
There is some research that demonstrates how individuals classiﬁed as having unresolved
loss or trauma are more likely to have children classiﬁed with an insecure attachment
style. Much of the current research in adult attachment theory is based on asking adults
about their perceptions of their early attachment relationships. The current study focuses
on the children of survivors' perceptions of their parents' traumatization, and how that is
related to their current attachments to their parents and signiﬁcant others. It will ﬁrrther
explore the relationship of these variables to family interconnectedness and dependency.
Attachment Theory as a Theoretical Framework

Several attachment classiﬁcation systems have emerged (Ainsworth, Blehar,
Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985)
for identifying the attachment styles of children and adults. All identify one “secure”
pattern of attachment, characterized by a model of the self as worthy of love and a model
of others as trustworthy and available. There are several variants of the “insecure”
patterns of attachment, but they generally include a difficulty in trusting others, a lack of
belief in the inherent worth of the self, and general interpersonal difﬁculties (Brennan,
Shaver, & Tobey, 1991; Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Lopez, 1995).

Numerous studies have found that children who are traumatized are more likely to
be classiﬁed as having an insecure style of attachment than those who are not
(Crittenden, 1988; Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Schneider-Rosen, Braunwald, Carlson, &
Cicchetti, 1985). Cohn, Cowan, Cowan, & Pearson (1992), and Rholes, Simpson, &
Blakely (1995) found links between attachment styles and parenting, with insecure

attachment styles associated with more difﬁculties in parenting (e.g., providing less

structure and warmth, experiencing less closeness with their children). Others

(Ainsworth & Eichberg, 1991; Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, Rudolph, & Grossmann,
1988; Main & Hesse, 1990) examined the intergenerational transmission of attachment
style. These authors found a high concordance between the attachment styles of mothers
and their infants. In addition, two studies (Ainsworth & Eichberg; Main & Hesse), found
that all of the mothers in their studies who were classiﬁed as having an unresolved loss of
an attachment ﬁgure had infants classified as insecurely attached. It seems likely,
therefore, that Holocaust survivors who did not resolve their trauma would be more likely
to have children with insecure attachment styles.

Bowlby (1988) describes how

a mother, who herself had a childhood deprived of love, seeks from her own child

the love she has hithero 1acked...What is of special relevance here is that more

often than not the child is expected to be grateful for such care as he receives and

not to notice the demands being made upon him. (p. 107).

Stories from children of survivors echo this theme: "I always put other people's
needs, especially my parents' needs, ﬁrst. I just couldn't do anything that might hurt
them. " (Hass, 1990, pp. 41-42). Some children of survivors have been able to identify
how this pattern extends to later relationships: "I always felt responsible for my parents'
unhappiness, so when I am with a lover, I am overly threatened when they are unhappy. I
feel that somehow I'm the cause of it." (Hass, p. 42).

Empirical Studies of Children of Holocaust Survivors
The empirical studies of children of Holocaust survivors have led to mixed

conclusions. Some (e. g., Baron, Reznikoff, & Glenwick, 1993; Rieck, 1994) have found

that this population does not differ from controls or has some strengths compared to
controls. Some of the ﬁndings of similarity have included the following: sociability, self-
acceptance, and social presence (Baron et al.), ﬁ'equencies of referrals for psychological
treatment, performance on Full Scale and Verbal IQ measures as well as the
developmental indicators of Human Figure Drawings (Rieck, 1994), and rates of
psychological symptoms at the time of assessment (Schwartz, Dohrenwend, & Levav,
1994)

While these studies found no differences between children of Holocaust survivors
and controls in the areas listed above, other studies have found that children of survivors
do have signiﬁcant difﬁculties compared to controls. Some of these diﬂiculties include
the following: Children of Holocaust survivors show more psychological dependency on
their parents and have more difﬁculty with intimacy in their marital relationships (Mazor
& Tal, 1996), male children of survivors scored lower than controls on the emotional
indicators of Human Figure Drawings (Rieck, 1994), and children of survivors reported
higher lifetime prevalence of depression and anxiety (Schwartz, Dohrenwend, & Levav,
1994)

One possible reason for this variability in ﬁndings relating to children of
Holocaust survivors is the nature of this heterogeneous group and the methods of
recruiting participants. Yehuda, Schmeidler, Elkin, et al. (1998) noted that "the literature
on the offspring of Holocaust survivors is divided into two ‘camps': those who described
the adverse effects of the Holocaust, and those failing to note these detrimental eﬂ‘ects."
(p. 640). She attributed this dichotomy of ﬁndings to the heterogeneity of the population

studied. She suggested "exploring the effects of the Holocaust on offspring based on

whether they may have been raised by more or less symptomatic parents might yield...
clarity with regard to intergenerational syndromes." (p. 641). Generally, those studies
that utilized clinical samples found more evidence of psychopathology, while those
studies that recruited from the general population of children of survivors found fewer
differences from controls. Studies that recruited from a general population of children of
survivors tended to ﬁnd relational difficulties rather than symptoms of psychopathology.
A primary goal of this study is to recruit a sample of children of Holocaust survivors
from the general population and speciﬁcally to examine within-group differences based
on perceptions of resolution of parents' trauma. Also, this study will be focusing on the
effects of the Holocaust on relationships, rather than on psychopathology.
Emotional Dependency on Family of Origin

Several researchers have found a relationship between COS status and emotional
dependency. Mazor and Tal (1996) found that children of Holocaust survivors were
more emotionally dependent on their families of origin than a control group. Brom, Kﬁr,
and Dasberg (2001) found that female COS had greater difﬁculty with
separation/individuation than a control group. A review of the literature by Last (1988)
concluded that Israeli and American COS were more dependent than a control group.
Wardi (1994) suggested that COS have difficulties with separation issues as they hold the
expectations of the parent to make up for all of the lost family members. The current
study will attempt to explicate the relationship between COS status and emotional
dependency on family of origin. It seems likely that emotional dependency on family of

origin will be related to perceived parental traumatization and to attachment security.

Relevance to Counseling Psychology

The relevance of adult attachment theory to the ﬁeld of counseling psychology
has previously been established (Lopez, 1995). According to Gelso and Fretz (1992),
“three roles have been central [to counseling psychology]: the remedial, the preventive,
and the developmental” (p. 5). The examination of the effects of the trauma related to the
Holocaust are relevant to counseling psychology as counseling psychologists are
interested in the remediation of difficulties, including traumas. “More counseling
psychologists devote mere time to this role than to the others.” (Gelso & Fretz, p. 6). A
better understanding of the second-generation effects of the Holocaust is likely to lead to
ﬁrrther understanding of second-generation effects of other traumatic experiences. This
study proposes to expand our knowledge from the effects of parents’ trauma on young
children’s attachment styles to the relationships between perceptions of parents’ trauma
and their adult oﬁ’springs’ attachment styles. This should lead to direct implications for
intervention and hopeﬁrlly prevention of difﬁculties in the next generation, which is also
a goal of counseling psychology.
Problem Statement

Holocaust survivors have been described as having undergone massive psychic
trauma (Krystal, 1968) for which they continue to show symptoms for their entire lives
(Fogelman, 1992; Wardi, 1994). The studies that have been conducted thus far, however,
leave some sizable research gaps. Those that have focused on the Holocaust survivor
population have resulted in mixed ﬁndings, with no clear conclusions that would lead to

greater understanding for intervention. No empirical studies have directly examined the

impact of the Holocaust from an attachment theoretical perspective, despite its relevance
for understanding this population.

The studies on the effects of trauma from an attachment theory perspective also
leave some gaps. These studies have established that children and adults who are
traumatized are more likely to have an insecure attachment style than the general
population (Crittenden, 1988; Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Stalker & Davies, 1995). They
indicate that security of attachment style is associated with speciﬁc parenting behavior,
with insecure attachment styles being associated with more parenting dimculties (Cohn,
Cowan, Cowan, & Pearson, 1992; Rholes, Simpson, & Blakely, 1995). Finally, they
suggest that mothers who are traumatized and do not resolve their traumas are more
likely to have children with insecure attachment styles (Ainsworth & Eichberg, 1991;
Main & Hesse, 1990). However, only one study has examined the parent’s unresolved
trauma from the perspective of their adult offspring, and that one used a problematic
measure of parental traumatization (Blumenthal, 1981). None has examined the effects
of perceived parental unresolved trauma on the adult offspring’s attachment style and
none have investigated the Holocaust population speciﬁcally. One study examined the
impact of parental Holocaust experience on offsprings' family interconnectedness, but it
did not take attachment theory into account. The current study Will attempt to determine
whether the perception of parental Holocaust traumatization is associated with the
attachment security of their children as well as their children's dependence on and
interconnectedness with family members. It will also explore the relationships between

the perception of trauma, attachment security, and family interconnectedness. This will

advance the current knowledge base of attachment research and literature. It potentially
will have important implications for practice as well.

This study proposes to investigate the following research questions:

1) Among adult children of Holocaust survivors (COS), is parent-adult attachment
security related to perceived parental trauma?

2) Is there a relationship between perceptions of parental Holocaust traumatization and
COS attachment security in relation to romantic partners?

3) Is there a relationship between perceptions of parental Holocaust traumatization and
COS emotional dependency/psychological interconnectedness with their family of
origin?

It is hypothesized that the children of survivors who view their parents as having
more unresolved trauma from the Holocaust will have less secure attachments to their
parents and their romantic partners than children of survivors who view their parents as
having more completely resolved the trauma of the Holocaust. Children of survivors who
view their parents as having less resolved trauma from the Holocaust will be more
interconnected with/dependent on their family. Those with insecure attachments to their
parents will be more likely to be interconnected.

Since insecure attachment styles have been linked to a variety of diﬂiculties,
including difﬁculties with information processing in college students (Mikulincer, 1997)
and personality disorders in college students (Brennan & Shaver, 1995) it seems clear
that part of our mission as counseling psychologists should be to help more individuals

become and remain securely attached.

10

Chapter 2
Review of the Literature

This chapter will provide a brief introduction to attachment theory. It will then
review the literature in six areas relevant to the present study: attachment and trauma,
intergenerational transmission of attachment styles, vicarious traumatization, other types
of trauma and its transmission, children of Holocaust survivors, and attachment theory
and the Holocaust. The review of the literature on attachment and trauma will provide
evidence for the signiﬁcant relationship between trauma and insecure attachment styles —
individuals who have been traumatized are more likely to have insecure attachment
styles. There is also a great deal of research on the intergenerational transmission of
attachment styles, which will demonstrate that individuals who are insecurely attached
are more likely to have children who are insecurely attached. Combining these literatures
provides compelling evidence for the likelihood that individuals traumatized by the
Holocaust will be more likely to have children with insecure attachment styles. The
current literature on children of Holocaust survivors is mixed in its ﬁndings on the effects
of their parents’ trauma, but no study has yet systematically examined the attachment
style of children of Holocaust survivors. The sparse literature on the relationship
between attachment and the Holocaust will be reviewed. The current paucity of this
literature points to the need for more research. Finally, research on other types of trauma
will be reviewed to determine whether similar effects from trauma, particularly the
intergenerational transmission of trauma, may be generalized to the population of

children of Holocaust survivors. This chapter will integrate these currently disparate

ll

topics to provide a strong conceptual and empirical rationale for the hypotheses
generating the current study.
Attachment theory

Attachment theory, as developed by Bowlby and Ainsworth (Bretherton, 1992),
was initially formulated. on the basis of observations of infants and young children with
their mothers. The theory originated out of the psychoanalytic movement, as Bowlby
was trained as an analyst, but departed from that movement by emphasizing childrens‘
real (vs. fantasized) relationships with their caretakers.

Bowlby believed that attachment behavior is pre-programmed and has an
evolutionary purpose, "a fundamental form of behaviour with its own internal motivation
distinct from feeding and sex, and of no less importance for survival". Attachment
behavior is activated "whenever the person is frightened, fatigued or sick, and is assuaged
by comforting and caregiving." (Bowlby, 1988, p. 27).

Ainsworth coined the temt "secure base" (Bretherton, 1992) to describe a
caretaker's function for the young child. By this she meant that to the extent to which a
child felt the caretaker was available and responsive in times of need, he or she could feel
safe in exploring the environment. When feeling threatened, the'child would return to the
secure base provided by the parent. Ainsworth developed the "strange situation"
observational methodology (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978), which, in
combination with home visits and naturalistic studies of infants and mothers, was used to
classify young children into one of several attachment groups. In this procedure, 1-year-
old children and their mothers were placed into a laboratory playroom, where a stranger

later joined them. The mother brieﬂy left the baby playing with the stranger and then

returned, then both the mother and the stranger brieﬂy left the baby alone in the
playroom, and ﬁnally the mother returned. The infants were classiﬁed into one of three
attachment styles based on observations of their exploratory behavior and their response
to reuniﬁcation with their mothers. The "secure" infants appeared to experience the
mother as a secure base and to have a positive internal working model of the self. The
"anxious-ambivalen " infants were dependent on the presence and approval of others for
validation of their own self-worth and appeared to experience their mothers as
inconsistent in their availability. The "avoidant" infants appeared to have developed
negative internal working models of themselves and others as a result of being
consistently rejected by the mother.

Bowlby described people's "internal working models" as "a way for the individual
to evaluate the availability and responsiveness of others and to evaluate the acceptability
of the self (Bowlby, 1973). These working models are derived from the individual's
experiences with early attachment figures. The young child who experiences a secure
attachment to a caretaker who is sensitively attuned to the child's needs, develops internal
working models of him or herself as worthy of love and models of others as being
available in times of need. Bowlby considered these models to be stable through
adulthood, as he reported, "It is not difficult to understand why patterns of attachment,
once developed, tend to persist"(Bowlby, 1988, p. 169). It is important to note, however,
that while attachment styles tend to be self-perpetuating, there is evidence that
individuals can develop a secure attachment style from an insecure one by experiencing a

secure base later in life (Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Pearson, Cohn, Cowan, & Cowan,

1994)

13

Despite the original formulation of attachment behavior being activated
throughout the lifespan, it is only relatively recently that research has been expanded to
adult attachment. Hazan and Shaver (1987) ﬁrst proposed that romantic love could be
conceptualized as an attachment process. This proposition inspired a new wave of
research on adult attachment. Stimulating much of this recent literature was the
development of the four-category taxonomy of attachment styles by Bartholomew and
Horowitz (1991), which is based on the individual's internal working model of self and
other. The "secure" individual has a positive internal working model of self and other.
The "preoccupied" individual has a negative internal working model of self but a positive
model of other. The "dismissive" individual has a positive working model of self but a
negative working model of other. The "fearful" individual has a negative internal
working model of self and other. The various insecure attachment styles have been
associated with a host of undesirable outcomes: Persons with insecure attachment styles
are more at risk for depression (Camelley, Pietromonaco, & Jaffe, 1994; Zuroﬂ‘ &
Fitzpatrick, 1995), personality disorders (Brennan & Shaver, 1998) and loneliness (Hazan
& Shaver, 1987). Individuals with secure attachment styles are better able to cope with
stress and negative emotions (Lopez & Brennan, 2000).

Attachment and Trauma

There has been a great deal of research on the effects of trauma on patterns of
attachment. The studies of children and adults have been conducted independently, with
little if any reference to each other. This may be due in part to differences in assessing
attachment style for children and adults. Young children most often are assessed using

the strange situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978), while adults are

14

typically assessed using either self-report questionnaires (Bartholomew & Horowitz,
1991; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Hazan & Shaver, 1987) or with the Adult
Attachment Interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1985/ 1991). These separate literatures will be
reviewed and then commonalities and differences in their ﬁndings will be addressed.

Eﬂect of T raurna on Children’s Attachment Style

Nearly all of the studies on the effect of trauma on children’s attachment styles
have focused on children who have been physically or sexually abused or neglected.
Several (Crittenden, 1988, 1992; Egeland & Sroufe 1981; Schneider-Rosen, Braunwald,
Carlson, & Cicchetti, 1985) assessed the attachment styles of low-income children. They
compared children who were abused with children who received adequate care, and
found that children who were abused were more likely to be insecurely attached.
Adequately cared for children were more likely to be securely attached to their caregiver.
This appears to demonstrate that child maltreatment, as opposed to poverty, is linked to
the development of insecure attachment styles. These studies also found stability for the
secure attachment style over time, while the insecure attachment styles showed more
variability. Egeland and Sroufe (1981) determined that there was a trend from an
insecure style toward the secure attachment style. Children who were assessed as having
an insecure attachment style at 12-months of age were likely to be assessed as having a
secure attachment style at 18-months of age.

Crittenden (1992) also studied the attachment styles of children ﬁ'om low-income
homes, but she examined additional variables such as type of abuse, coping style,
attachment style, and interaction with siblings. She found that “adequately reared

children were generally securely attached to their mothers, marginally maltreated

15

children displayed a mixture of secure and anxious patterns," and neglected and abused
children displayed a combination of insecure attachment styles (p. 336). Beeghly and
Cicchetti (1994) compared maltreated and non-maltreated low-income toddlers on their
ability to talk about internal states (feelings and emotions of themselves and others) as
well as their attachment styles. They found that children who were maltreated and
insecurely attached used fewer internal state words than other children. Securely
attached children had more ability to label their affect. Like the previous studies cited,
these authors found signiﬁcantly greater proportions of attachment insecurity in the
maltreated toddlers than the non-maltreated toddlers. The non-maltreated toddlers were
found to have similar proportions of attachment security as a sample of middle-class
toddlers.

Schneider-Rosen and Cicchetti (1984) also examined the eﬂ‘ects of child
maltreatment on attachment style, but they went further than the other authors and also
investigated the relationship between attachment style and the development of self-
recognition in infants. Signiﬁcant differences were found in the proportions of infants in
each of the attachment styles which were similar to the ﬁndings reported earlier: Infants
who were maltreated were more likely to be categorized as having an insecure attachment
style, whereas those who were adequately cared for were more likely to be categorized as
having a secure attachment style.

The authors found that a higher proportion of those infants who displayed visual
self-recognition were securely attached, regardless of whether or not they were
maltreated. Schneider-Rosen and Cicchetti (1984) suggest that the relationship between

the secure attachment style and the development of the capacity for self-recognition may

16

be explained as follows: The quality of the attachment relationship promotes the
emergence of the capacities that underlie the ability to differentiate between self and
other as well as a rudimentary sense of self. This ability is evidenced by the self-
recognition task. This ﬁnding appears related to Beeghly and Cichetti's (1994) data on
the relationship between the ability to describe internal states and security of attachment.
Holrnberg, Benedict, and Hynan (1998) examined the inﬂuence of gender,
attachment disturbance, and attachment disturbance combined with exposure to violence
on children’s play. They reviewed casenotes of play therapy sessions of 3-5 year-olds
with disrupted attachments and compared the themes of the children. They found that
children with a history of both attachment disturbance and exposure to violence engaged
in higher proportions of play with themes characterized as aggessive, failed nurturing,
instability, and ambivalence than children with a history of disrupted attachment alone.
Lynch and Cicchetti (1998) examined the role of attachment on children’s
memory, comparing children who were victims of community violence, children who
were abused, and a control group. The children ranged in age ﬁom 8-13 years old, and
all were economically disadvantaged. The authors used the Relatedness Questionnaire,
which rates children on the dimensions of emotional quality of the relationship with the
primary caregiver and psychological proximity seeking to the caregiver. They found that
securely attached children who had been maltreated by their parents were more able to
recall negative mother-referent stimuli than insecurely attached maltreated children.
However, insecurely attached children who were victims of community violence had

better recall of negative mother-referent stimuli than securely attached children who had

17

been victims of community violence. The authors also found that children who reported
high levels of community violence were more likely to be insecurely attached.

Toth and Cicchetti (1996) compared the attachment patterns of maltreated and
non-maltreated low-income latency-age children. Sexually abused children with
"confused patterns of relatedness" (similar to insecure attachment) reported the highest
level of depressed symptomatology. In this study, a confused pattern was determined to
be when the child reported high levels of satisfaction with the other (mother, teacher or
best friend), as well as high levels of wishing to be closer to that person. The authors
examined the impact of attachment on school ﬁrnctioning by comparing the attachment
styles and school functioning of maltreated and non-maltreated children from low-income
families. The authors found that “non-maltreated children with optimal/adequate
relatedness to mother evidenced the lowest level of externalizing symptomatology.” (p.
257). These children also had the highest level of social acceptance.

van Uzendoorn, Goldberg, Kroonenberg, and Frenkel (1992) conducted a meta-
analysis of studies on the effect of maternal and child problems on the child’s attachment
as measured by the strange situation. They concluded that the presence of maternal
problems (e.g., depression, mental illness, being a teenage mother) was strongly
associated with children with insecure attachment styles, but the presence of child
problems (e. g. prematurity, deafness, cystic ﬁbrosis) was not. The exception was
children with Down’s Syndrome, who were more likely to have a “disorganized”
attachment style.

Children’s environments play a large role in the development of their attachment

style. The literature thus far provides clear evidence that traumatized children are more

18

likely than non-traumatized children to have insecure attachment styles (Beeghly &
Cicchetti, 1994; Crittenden, 1988, 1992; Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Groze & Rosenthal,
1993; Hohnberg, Benedict, & Hynan, 1998; Lynch & Cicchetti, .1998; Schneider-Rosen
& Cicchetti, 1984; Schneider-Rosen, Braunwald, Carlson, & Cicchetti, 1985; Smith &
Howard, 1994; Toth & Cicchetti, 1996). These ﬁndings have held for infants and
toddlers, preschool, and latency age children, with attachment style assessed using
diverse methodologies. Maternal difficulties are clearly linked to children’s attachment
styles (van Uzendoorn, Goldberg, Kroonenberg, & Frenkel, 1992).

The literature on trauma-related correlates of attachment style appears to focus on
infancy, provide some information on the preschool and latency age, and then jumps to
adulthood. Information on the effects of either early or current trauma on later childhood
or adolescence is conspicuously absent in the attachment literature.

Effect of Trauma on Adults ’ Attachment Style

Studies of the impact of trauma on adult functioning have examined a much
broader array of situations than those studies focusing on children. These studies include
those on survivors of childhood sexual abuse, other childhood abuse, parental drinking,
and war trauma. Taken together, they provide evidence that childhood traumas are
related to enduring attachment insecurity, and that traumas faced in adulthood are also
associated with insecure attachments.

Adult attachment has been assessed through a variety of self-report instruments
(e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Collins & Read, 1990; Hazan & Shaver, 1987;
Simpson, Rholes, & Nelligan, 1992) as well as through narrative interviews (AAI;

George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985). The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was developed

19

speciﬁcally to determine if infants' attachment classiﬁcations could be predicted from
their parents' attachment interviews. The AAI process asks parents about their early
family relationships. The interviews are transcribed and coded based on both the nature
of the memories revealed and the coherence of the discussion around them. Interviewees

are then classiﬁed as "secure/autonomous", "dismissing , preoccupied", or

"unresolved/disorganized" - corresponding with the categories of " secure , avoidant",
"resistan ", and "disorganized" for infants assessed through the strange situation. The
unresolved/disorganized classiﬁcation is particularly relevant for this study, as it is
assigned when "substantial lapses in the monitoring of reasoning or discourse occur
during discussions of potentially traumatic events." (Hesse, 1999, p. 398).

Two studies have examined the effect of childhood sexual abuse on adult women.
Stalker and Davies (1995) studied psychotherapy clients who had been sexually abused
as children. They found that 60% of the participants were classiﬁed as “unresolved in
respect to loss/trauma” as adults using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI, George,
Kaplan, & Main, 1985). Alexander (1993) also examined childhood sexual abuse ﬁ'om
an attachment perspective. She recruited a community sample of women who had
survived incestuous abuse. She found much higher proportions of insecure attachment
styles in this sample than in a normative sample. Personality disorders, as assessed by
the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II, Millon, 1969, 1981, 1986a,
1986b), were not predicted by abuse characteristics (age of onset, type, etc.) but were
predicted by adult attachment style. These studies provide evidence that childhood

trauma, speciﬁcally childhood sexual abuse, is associated with long-term attachment

insecurity. It is notable that more than half of the women in the Stalker and Davies study

20

were categorized as “unresolved with respect to trauma” — years after the trauma
occurred. This supports the assumption in the present study that many Holocaust
survivors would be likely to be classiﬁed as “unresolved” with respect to the loss and
trauma experienced in the Holocaust.

A study by Allen, Coyne, and Huntoon (1998) assessed attachment style and
trauma history in women hospitalized for trauma-related disorders. They found an
inverse correlation between trauma and security of attachment, so that those women with
the least trauma were most likely to be securely attached. They also administered the
MCMI-III to these women in order to assess personality disorders. “Fearﬁrl” attachment
was associated with Borderline, Paranoid and Schizotypal personality disorders, while
“preoccupied” attachment was speciﬁcally associated with Borderline Personality
Disorder. Allen, Huntoon, and Evans (1999) ﬁrrther examined the relationships between
attachment styles and trauma. They identiﬁed ﬁve subtypes of complex Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder among women hospitalized for trauma-related disorders. They found that
the "alienated" cluster, identiﬁed as the most pathological, had the lowest score on
attachment security. The "alienated" and "withdrawn" clusters scored particularly low on
capacity for closeness. The "adaptive" cluster demonstrated a relatively high capacity to
depend on others along with relatively low anxiety about relationships. This provides
ﬁrrther evidence for the link between severe trauma and impaired attachment security.

Other studies examined the impact of childhood physical abuse on adult
attachment style. Their ﬁndings were similar to the ﬁndings for survivors of childhood
sexual abuse. Clark, Shaver, and Calverly (1994) asked adults to recollect childhood

abuse. They found that various types of childhood abuse were associated with a “fearﬁrl”

21

attachment style for women. Men were more likely to be classiﬁed with a “fearful”
attachment style if they had suffered psychological abuse, while men classiﬁed as having
a “dismissing” attachment style were more likely to report having witnessed their parents
hitting each other. Individuals classiﬁed as having “secure” attachments received lower
scores on a number of abuse items, indicating they had suffered less abuse.

Dutton (1998) also found that relative to men with other attachment styles, men
with a “fearful” attachment style were more likely to have experienced childhood trauma.
These men had high levels of depression, anxiety, dissociative states and sleep
disturbances. A subgroup of these men became abusive in intimate relationships when
their wives were unable to soothe them as they expected. They blamed their wives for
their dysphoric feelings and for not making them feel better.

Several studies (Brennan, Shaver, & Tobey, 1991; Hadley, Holloway, &
Mallinckrodt, 1993; Mothershead, Kivlighan, & Wynkoop, 1998) examined the impact of
parental drinking on adult attachment styles, with some contradictory ﬁndings. Brennan
et al. found that students categorized as “avoidant”, "anxious-ambivalent", and "fearful"
were more likely to have one or two problem-drinking parents. Hadley et al. found that
family of origin conﬂict was associated with insecure attachment, but did not ﬁnd
signiﬁcant diﬁ‘erences between Adult Children of Alcoholics and Adult Children of
Dysfunctional Families. Similarly, Mothershead et al. found family dysﬁrnction to be
related to parental attachment, but attachment was not related to parental alcoholism.
Insecure attachments to parents were associated with increased levels of interpersonal

distress. There appears to be inconclusive evidence for the role of parental drinking on

22

adult attachment style, with stronger support for the relationship between general
dysﬁrnctional family of origin and insecure attachment.

A particularly well-designed longitudinal study by Ogawa, Sroufe, Weinfeld,
Carlson, and Egeland (1997) studied participants prospectively, from infancy through
young adulthood. They found that children who were classiﬁed as having
anxious/avoidant relationships with their mothers as assessed by the strange situation in
infancy were more likely to have high dissociation scores in grade school and
adolescence. Those children who were classiﬁed as disorganized were likely to have
high dissociation scores in adolescence and young adulthood. The connection between
an early avoidant style and later dissociation is explained as resulting from the child
learning early to defensively exclude information and feelings that may activate the
attachment system. This may also be related to the study cited earlier (Beeghly &
Cicchetti, 1994) which found that insecurely attached children used fewer internal state
and feeling words.

The studies just reviewed provide evidence of the relationship between the
experience of trauma and the development of an insecure style of attachment. They
indicate that early traumatic experiences can lead to later classiﬁcation as “unresolved
with respect to loss or trauma.” The next studies provide evidence that individuals with
an insecure style of attachment, particularly those with an unresolved loss or trauma, are
more likely to have children classiﬁed as having an insecure attachment style. This
evidence provides support for the hypothesis that Holocaust survivors with unresolved

trauma are more likely to have children with insecure attachment styles.

23

Intergenerational Transmission of A ttachment Style

Bowlby (1988) wrote of the effects of an individual’s traumatic childhood on that
person’s offspring. He noted that children of traumatized parents may be required to
always “appear happy and to avoid any expression of sorrow, loneliness and anger.” (p.
108). The children learn to alter their perceptions in order to not experience the
disallowed emotions. This leads to a variety of cognitive disturbances. The parent in
this case is not functioning as a secure base from which the child can explore the world,
thus it seems likely that these children develop insecure attachment styles.

Numerous studies provide evidence of the strong relationship between the
attachment styles of children and their primary caregiver. Several (Ainsworth &
Eichberg, 1991; Benoit & Parker, 1994; Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, Rudolph, &
Grossmann, 1988; Main and Hesse, 1990; and Zeanah, Benoit, Barton, Regan, Hirshberg,
& Lipsitt, 1993) compared the attachment styles of mothers and their infants. Main and
Solomon (1986) created the “disorganized” classiﬁcation for infants when researchers
repeatedly found that many infants did not ﬁt any of the three existing attachment
classiﬁcations in the strange situation. The disorganized infants seemed to lack a readily
observable goal in their behavior, and they often displayed odd, contradictory behavior.
Some researchers have hypothesized that the disorganized infants are afraid of their
attachment ﬁgure (Ward & Carlson, 1995).

Main and Hesse (1990) described a study in which the mothers’ attachment
classiﬁcation was compared with her infants’ attachment classiﬁcation. In this study,
they speciﬁcally studied infants who were classiﬁed as “disorganized” and their mothers.

They found that 60% of mothers who had experienced early loss of a family member had

24

infants classiﬁed as "disorganized. " Ninety-one percent of mothers classiﬁed as
"unresolved with respect to loss" had infants classiﬁed as "disorganized." The authors
speculated as to the source of this transmission: "Owing to the fact that what is
producing fear in the parent is attachment-related, the infant may occasionally become
confused in the parents‘ mind either with the parent herself or with those attachment
ﬁgures whose death or behavior caused the original trauma. " (p. 177). To extrapolate to
the present study, it could be that Holocaust survivor parents conﬁrse their children with
their family members lost in the Holocaust. This constant reminder leads them to be
constantly anxious and afraid, creating insecure attachments in their children.

Ainsworth and Eichberg (1991) replicated the results of Main and Hesse (1990).
They studied 30 women who had experienced the death of an attachment ﬁgure. Of the
20 who were judged to have resolved their mourning, 18 infants matched their mother’s
attachment classiﬁcations. All of the mothers who were classiﬁed as “unresolved” with
respect to loss or trauma had infants classiﬁed as “disorganized.” These studies are
highly relevant to the present study as it is presumed that many Holocaust survivors may
have unresolved loss or trauma. If true, then extrapolating ﬁom these studies, their
children would be more likely to manifest a “disorganized” attachment style relative to
the children of survivors who have resolved their trauma experience.

Schuengel, van IJzendoom, Bakermans—Kranenburg, and Blom (1998)
investigated the relationship between maternal unresolved loss and frightening behavior.
Frightening behavior included maternal “looming” — (suddenly appearing before the
baby), or attacking the baby in words or posture. They found a relationship between

mothers classiﬁed as “unresolved with respect to loss” using the AA] and ﬁightening

behaviors observed in a naturalistic setting. Interestingly, they found a signiﬁcant
relationship between maternal classiﬁcation as “unresolved with respect to loss” and
infant “disorganized” classiﬁcation, but did not ﬁnd a relationship between infant
classiﬁcation and maternal ﬁightening behaviors. This suggests that it is not necessarily
the ﬁightening maternal behaviors that are causing the infants’ disorganization, but some
other aspect of the mother’s unresolved loss.

Bakermans-Kranenburg, Schuengel, & van IJzendoorn (1999) developed an
addition to the AAI, assessing for resolution of loss due to miscarriage. They found that
for insecurely attached mothers, unresolved loss due to miscarriage was related to a
disorganized attachment style in their infants. In contrast, when securely attached
mothers had an unresolved miscarriage, this was not related to their infants' attachment
organization. They suggested that parental attachment security can buffer the effects of
trauma being transmitted to the next generation.

Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, Rudolph, & Grossmann (1988) found positive
maternal attachment to be closely related to infant secure attachment style, while
maternal repressive and incoherent patterns were related to insecure attachment styles in
their infants. Zeanah et a1. (1993) compared the attachment classiﬁcations of mothers
and their one-year—old infants. They found signiﬁcant concordance between maternal
autonomousfmfant secure styles and maternal dismissing/infant avoidant styles. The
relationship between maternal preoccupied/infant resistant styles was not signiﬁcant.

Steele, Steele and Fonagy (1993) investigated the relationships between the
attachment styles of mothers and fathers with their infants. They found signiﬁcant

relationships between both mothers’ and fathers’ attachment styles and the attachment

26

classiﬁcations of their infants. More speciﬁcally, they found that mothers and fathers
classiﬁed as “secure” or “avoidant” were likely to have infants classiﬁed the same way.
Mothers who were classiﬁed as “unresolved with respect to loss or trauma” were likely to
have infants classiﬁed as “disorganized” - however this was not true for fathers. The
“preoccupied” category for parents did not have signiﬁcant concordance with the
insecure-resistant category for infants. The authors indicated that children’s attachment
to mothers and fathers may be predictive of diﬁ’erent areas of functioning, and cite other
studies (Suess, Grossmann, & Sroufe, 1992; van IJzendoorn, Ba‘kermans-Kranenburg,
Zwart-Woudstra, Van Busschbach, & Lambermorn, 1991) which suggest that attachment
to mother may predict children’s concentration and ego resilience, while attachment to
father is more predictive of sociability with peers.

Ward and Carlson (1995) examined the concordance of maternal and infant
attachment in a sample of expectant teenage mothers. The attachment style of the mother
was assessed while she was expecting, and the infants were then assessed when they were
15-months old. They found strong relation ships between infant and mother attachment
style.

Oppenheirn (1998) reviewed research on the eﬂect of collective sleeping on
children’s attachment styles as well as the transmission of attachment styles in the Israeli
kibbutz. Until just recently, infants and children living in the Israeli kibbutzim spent the
night in an infant or children’s house, where they were cared for by a rotating
watchwoman. Using the strange situation, children who were raised in collective
sleeping arrangements were classiﬁed with signiﬁcantly higher levels of insecure

attachment than other Israeli samples. When the kibbutzim began shifting away from the

27

collective sleeping arrangement, some investigators compared the attachment styles of
children living on kibbutzim with and without such arrangements (Sagi, van IJzendoom,
Aviezer, Donnel, and Mayseless, 1994). They found that 52% of the children from
collective sleeping arrangements were classiﬁed as insecurely attached, compared to 20%
of the children who spent the night with their families. The groups were reported to be
identical except for the sleeping arrangements. Another group (Sagi et al., 1997) then
compared the intergenerational transmission of attachment between children and
caregivers on kibbutzim with and without collective sleeping arrangements. They found
a 40% concordance in the attachment styles of children and caregivers on kibbutzim with
collective sleeping, compared to 76% concordance between children and caregivers who
were sleeping together. These studies indicated that the practice of collective sleeping
resulted in higher proportions of insecure attachment styles in children and disrupted the
transmission of attachment ﬁ'om caregivers to children.

Two studies (Benoit & Parker, 1994; Scares & Silva, 1998) examined the
correlation of attachment style between a parent and their older offspring. Benoit and
Parker compared the attachment styles of grandmothers, mothers and infants. They
found signiﬁcant correlations between expectant mothers with their own mothers when
the three-category classiﬁcation system of the Adult Attachment Interview was used.
Mother-infant attachment style concordance was examined both prospectively and
concurrently. Signiﬁcant mpther-infant attachment style concordance was found using
both prospective and concurrent assessment, and by using the three vs. four category
classiﬁcation system. Interestingly, there was no signiﬁcant relationship between

grandmother’s “unresolved” attachment status and the mother’s attachment style. This is

28

different than what would be predicted from the literature on "unresolved" mothers and
infants, and may possibly be explained by the “unresolved” loss coming at a time when
the childrearing was basically completed. Alternatively, it may be that the unresolved
status of mothers has a disorganizing effect on infants, but that children learn to
compensate as they grow older. The present study will help clarify this by assessing the
adult children’s attachment style after they have been raised by a parent with unresolved
trauma.

Scares and Silva (1998) compared the attachment styles of parents and their
adolescent offspring. They used the Adult Attachment Interview with 60 adolescents and
their mothers. They found a 72% match between the attachment classiﬁcations of
adolescents and their mothers. The concordance appeared to be stronger for mothers and
daughters and for mothers from a “middle” education level (completed high school, no
college). None of the adolescents were classiﬁed as secure-reﬂexive, which means that
they were not able to describe negative attachment experiences in a coherent, balanced
way. The authors suggested that this may be due to the fact that the adolescents were still
living with and to some degree enmeshed with their attachment ﬁgures.

van Uzendoorn (1992) conducted a review of the literature on the
intergenerational transmission of attachment styles. He reviewed several studies that
compared the attachment styles of parents and their infants and noted strong correlations
between infant and parent attachment style, even with large time gaps between child and
parent assessment. Later, the same author conducted a meta-analysis of empirical studies
assessing the concordance of parental and infant attachment (van lJzendoorn, 1995). The

meta-analysis also revealed strong correlations between parent and infant attachment,

29

with maternal attachment more strongly related to infant attachment than paternal
attachment. Samples with older children were less strongly correlated than studies with
younger children. Random samples and samples ﬁom the United States showed larger
effect sizes than selected samples and those ﬁom other countries. He found that adult
attachment was predictive of infant attachment using the four-category model, and not
just the secure/insecure split. van IJzendoom and Bakerrnans-Kranenburg (1997) also
conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between parental attachment
representations and maternal sensitive responsiveness. They found a moderate effect size
for this relationship (F34).

The studies just reviewed provide strong evidence for the intergenerational
transmission of attachment style. Concordant attachment styles have primarily been
found between mothers and their infants, but have also been found between fathers and
their infants, grandmothers and their daughters, and mothers and their adolescents. A
particularly strong relationship has been noted between a mother’s “unresolv ”
classiﬁcation and her child’s classiﬁcation as “disorganized.” The next section will
review the literature on vicarious traumatization, which may shed light on the effects of
being a witness to another's trauma.

T raumatization

McCann, Sakheirn, and Abrahamson (1988) provided a comprehensive review of
the research and theory of traumatization, and proposed an explanatory model of
adaptation. The authors suggested that traumatized individuals may show psychological
responses across ﬁve major categories: emotional, cognitive, biological, behavioral, and

interpersonal. They indicate that fear, anxiety, depression and decreased self-esteem are

30

universal immediate reactions to trauma or victimization, although the evidence for long-
term effects appears to depend on the type of trauma.

Although the McCann et al review is generally quite comprehensive, it is
criticized by Figley (1988) for not including the Nazi Holocaust in its consideration of the
literature on trauma and victimization. He also cited the need for inclusion of secondary
traumatization of those who work with trauma victims as well as the family members of
trauma victims in a review of the literature. He suggested focusing on traumatic stress
rather than on victimization, noting that victims hate to be referred to as victims, and
ﬁnally he notes the importance of “studying non-help seeking people who have been
exposed to traumatic eVents.” (p. 639). The present study attempted to incorporate
Figley’s recommendations. It utilized non-help seeking participants who were children
of Holocaust survivors and it addresses the need for inclusion of secondary
traumatization.

Brett and Ostruﬂ‘ (1985) conducted another review of trauma literature. They
reviewed the ways traumatic imagery has been conceptualized by a number of authors
over the years. They abstracted two dimensions of symptoms that were identiﬁed by
previous work: repetition of the trauma and attempts to deny the trauma. These
dimensions are hypothesized to be related, so that one cluster of symptoms leads to the
other in a continuing cycle. They also noted that different types of trauma appear to be
related to different types of symptoms, so that those exposed to combat are more likely to
experience intrusive imagery while those who committed atrocities are more prone to

psychic numbing. The repetition and attempts to deny the trauma appear to be related to

31

the earlier described tendency for Holocaust survivors to either speak compulsively of
their experiences or not at all.
Vicarious T raumatization

Numerous authors have written on the experience of vicarious traumatization,
deﬁned as “the effects which clients’ graphic and painful material (e. g., rape, abuse,
violent ideation) produces in the therapist’s own cognitive schemas or beliefs,
expectations, and assumptions about self and others". (Fox & Carey, 1999, p. 189). If
this deﬁnition is extended to children exposed to their parents’ trauma, it seems clear that
that this vicarious traumatization would affect their cognitive schemas (mental models)
and thereby their attachment styles.

Baranowsky, Young, Johnson-Douglas, Williams-Keeler, & McCarrey (1998)
noted a particularly interesting study (McCarroll, Blank, & Hill, 1995) which found that
staff at the United States Holocaust Museum suffered stress reactions from exposure to
historical material on the Holocaust. This lends support to the expansion of the term
vicarious traumatization ﬁ'om therapists to others exposed to traumatic material.
Certainly it seems likely that if therapists and museum staff members, exposed to trauma
on a relatively limited basis, develop vicarious traumatization, then children of Holocaust
survivors, potentially exposed vicariously to parental traumatic material on a daily basis,
would also experience symptomatology.

The studies reviewed in this section provide evidence that individuals exposed to
a variety of types of trauma are likely to experience a range of symptoms ﬁom the
trauma, and these symptoms may be quite long lasting. These studies establish the

impact of trauma on the individual and note that many traumatized individuals do not

32

seek help for their symptoms. The next set of studies reviews the literature on the
children of traumatized individuals.
Intergenerational Eﬂects of Trauma

A number of authors have examined the intergenerational effects of various types
of trauma (Aarts, 1998, Baker & Gippenreiter, 1998; Hunter-King, 1998; Nader, 1998;
Nagata, 1998; & Rosencheck & Fontana, 1998).

Nader (1998) reported that children who experienced trauma were more likely to
develop symptoms of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) if their parents had
previously experienced a trauma. The child's trauma did not tend to be similar to the
parents'. She summarized a number of possible explanations for this increased likelihood
of traumatic symptoms: heightened vulnerability in children of traumatized parents,
learned responses from parents, possible undermining of recovery by overprotective
survivor parents, interpretation of the event as a second trauma - with the ﬁrst identiﬁed
as the parents' traumatization, or a sense of themselves as protectors of their parents. (p.
581). She also noted the possibility of genetic imprinting as a way that trauma is
transmitted across generations. Nader also reported that parents who had worked to
resolve their traumas, or who had served an active role in protecting themselves during
their trauma, were less likely to have children develop PT SD symptoms after a traumatic
event. This study provides evidence that parents' resolution of trauma is associated with
healthier outcomes for their offspring.

Other authors focused on children whose parents were affected by war or political
persecution. The intergenerational effects of the J apanese-American internment were

described by Nagata (1998). She studied 596 Japanese-Americans, and compared those

33

whose had one or two parents interned with those who did not have a parent interned.
She found that those with at least one parent interned had more ﬁ'equent and longer
conversations with their parents about the internment, although these conversations were
still described as few and brief.

Rosenheck and F ontana (1998) examined the intergenerational aspects of trauma
with relation to Vietnam combat veterans. They reviewed two studies of Vietnam
veterans with and without fathers who were veterans. One study assessed a general
sample of Vietnam veterans, while the other assessed a sample that was seeking help at
the Department for Veterans’ Affairs. In the general sample, there were no signiﬁcant
differences between those veterans with veteran fathers and those whose fathers were not
veterans. However, in the help-seeking sample, those Vietnam veterans with PTSD had
more severe symptoms if their fathers were also veterans. This research is very similar to
research on children of Holocaust survivors (COS), which has found few diﬁ’erences
between COS and controls in a general sample, but more evidence of pathology for
children of survivors when examining clinical samples.

Baker and Gippenreiter (1998) examined the impact of Stalin’s purge on
succeeding generations of Russian families. The authors found that grandchildren’s
experience of emotional cutoff (Bowen, 1978) from their grandparents was not related to
whether the grandparents had gone through the Purge. Cutoff is deﬁned as "part of the
natural process in which children move toward autonomy in relation to their parents." (p.
409). Mild cutoff can be healthy, but intense emotional cutoff "can be said to be
pathogenic." (p. 409). There was less cutoff in the maternal line than in the paternal line.

The authors concluded that families who maintained a sense of connectedness with lost

34

family members fared better than those who did not, and this remained true through the
next generation. They noted, “Whether the grandparents actually physically survived the
Purge was less important than the strength and values passed on to their grandchildren
through the knowledge of what had happened to them.” (p. 422). This suggests that those
parents who talk about the Holocaust and their losses may have more emotionally healthy
offspring than those who do not.

Similar conclusions were made by Hunter-King (1998), who studied children of
soldiers who were Missing in Action/Bodies Not Recovered in Vietnam. She found that
the most difﬁcult problem for these adult children was the lack of resolution of their loss.
Resolution of loss appears to affect individuals from childhood into adulthood. The
majority also reported a positive effect in that they developed closer relationships with
their remaining family members than they believed they would have otherwise. Hunter-
King found that the role of the mother was the most critical factor in the children’s
coping with their loss. Since this seemed to be the key predictor of their children’s
coping, she advocated for supporting the families immediately upon their loss in order to
prevent the intergenerational effects of unresolved trauma.

Aarts (1998) reviewed studies of children of World War 11 survivors from the
Dutch East Indies. In one study, 6 psychotherapists were interviewed about their
experiences in working with this population. All six concurred that children of parents
who were not able to master their war-related traumas were at higher risk of developing
psychopathological complaints themselves. These therapists said that parents who had
gone through this trauma engaged in a “conspiracy of silence” which among other things

led to a dys-regulation of attachment. All six therapists concurred that these children of

35

survivors were more difﬁcult to treat than their other patients due to rigid defense
mechanisms and intense loyalty to their parents. Another study reviewed by Aarts was
an empirical study comparing children of World War 11 survivors from the Dutch Indies
with a matched comparison group. Very few signiﬁcant differences were found between
the two groups. Children whose parents had been imprisoned in Japanese internment
camps had more often sought professional help in the past. There were no differences in
current nature or number of psychological complaints. Again, this parallels the literature
on children of Holocaust survivors, with an emphasis on psychopathology when clinical
populations are studied and few differences between COS and control groups when non-
clinical populations are studied.

There is some evidence from the literature on the intergenerational transmission
of trauma that children of survivors of trauma are at some increased risk of
symptomatology themselves. Communication about the trauma and resolution of losses
are associated with healthier offspring.

Children of Holocaust Survivors

There is a great deal of literature published on children of Holocaust survivors.
The current state of literature includes empirical studies, autobiographical accounts from
children of survivors, theoretical papers by therapists, and works of ﬁction. Given the
empirical nature of the pr0posed study, the empirical studies of children of Holocaust
survivors, published between the years 1992-2002 and published literature reviews were
reviewed for this section. The majority of these studies compared a group of children of
Holocaust survivors to some control group on a measure of personality, adjustment or

family functioning.

36

Rieck (1994) conducted an epidemiological study of all of the children referred
for psychological services in a community in Israel. She gathered data on only children
or ﬁrst-born children in an attempt to control for birth-order. Rieck found that when
children’s fathers were less educated, survivor’s children were referred less frequently
than controls. Male children of survivors were referred more often than female children
of survivors, and female children of survivors were referred less ﬁ'equently than female
controls. '

Schwartz, Dohrenwend, and Levav (1994) conducted a two-stage epidemiological
study using a random sample of the Israel Population Registry. They compared children
of survivors to children of immigrants on a wide variety of measures assessing
participants’ current functioning. They found no differences between the groups on
demoralization, enervation, post-traumatic stress symptoms, or guilt. They also found no
differences between the groups on false beliefs and perceptions, suicidal ideation,
antisocial behaviors, problems with drinking, or schizoid personality traits. However,
children of survivors did demonstrate a greater need to please and higher scores on over-
conforrrrity. In the second phase of the study, participants were asked about their current
and lifetime rates of major and minor depression and anxiety disorders. There were no
differences between the groups on the current rates of these disorders, but the children of
survivors (COS) were elevated in the lifetime rates. The authors'speculated that the COS
may have felt more anxious and depressed when they were younger and living with their
survivor parents. Alternatively, they may have made more self-attributions of anxiety

and depression when reﬂecting back on their earlier lives with their survivor parents.

37

Baron, Rezrrikoff, and Glenwick (1993) compared children of survivors with a
control group on a variety of personality measures. To control for the effect of being a
child of immigrants, all of the participants were Jewish children of European immigrants.
The authors found no signiﬁcant differences between the two groups. Magids (1998)
also compared children of survivors with a control group. She compared adult children
of “hidden” Holocaust survivors, who survived the Holocaust by hiding — in a closed
space, in the woods, or by posing as or converting to Christianity to a control group of
adult participants. The control group was matched on a number of demographic
variables, including age, gender, religion, and European ancestry. Both groups
completed the 16PF, and no signiﬁcant differences were found between them.

Mazor and Ta] (1996) also compared children of survivors to children of
immigrants, although in contrast to Baron et al’s American sample, Mazor and Tal‘s was
Israeli. They compared the participants’ ability to individuate from their family of origin
and develop the capacity for intimacy in spousal relationships. Mazor and Tal concluded
that children of survivors showed more emotional dependence on their parents and
exhibited a lower capacity for intimacy with their spouses than the control group. Their
study will be partially replicated in the present study, by utilizing the same measure of
emotional dependence/psychological interconnectedness. However, the present study
will test the relationships between psychological interconnectedness, perceptions of
resolution of parents' trauma, and attachment security.

A related study was conducted by Brom, Kﬁr, and Dasberg (2001). They
compared children of Holocaust survivors with a control group in a double-blind

interview designed to assess psychopathology and difﬁculties in interpersonal

38

relationships. They developed an instrument for their study that assessed
separation/individuation, aggression regulation, guilt feelings, cohesiveness of identity
formation, vulnerability of the self, depression and interpersonal problems. They found
that the children of survivors did not exhibit any more symptoms of psychopathology
than the control group. However, the children of survivors (all female participants) did
demonstrate greater difficulty with separation-individuation in their relationships with
their partners and children, they were more guilt-prone, and appeared more
narcissistically vulnerable than the participants in the control group. No differences were
found in the regulation of aggression, cohesiveness of identity, depression, or
interpersonal behavior.

Sorscher and Cohen (1997) compared American adult children of survivors with
American adult Jews who were not children of survivors. These authors designated
levels of trauma for the survivors depending on how they had spent the Holocaust - level
1 survivors were refugees, and level 4 survivors were incarcerated in concentration or
forced labor camps. They examined participants’ Jewish identiﬁcation, Holocaust-
related imagery, and parental communication of wartime experiences. They found no
differences between the groups on levels of Jewish identity, but did ﬁnd that level of
maternal trauma was signiﬁcantly correlated with affective and negative communication.
Level of paternal trauma was not associated with a particular communication style. The
authors also found that children of survivors reported signiﬁcantly greater Holocaust-
irnagery, particularly in associated dreams, thoughts and places.

Solomon (1995) examined the question of whether being a child of Holocaust

survivors in Israel made soldiers who were captured and held as Prisoners of War

39

(POWs) more vulnerable to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than other POWs
who were not children of survivors. He found that parental Holocaust status was not a
predictor of soldiers’ development of PTSD symptoms after being captured.

Yehuda (1999) extended Solomon’s work with a series of three studies. In the
ﬁrst, she compared current and lifetime PTSD and other psychiatric disorders in children
of Holocaust survivors and a control group. She found no diﬁ‘erences between the groups
in the number of traumatic events experienced. However, children of survivors were
signiﬁcantly more likely to meet criteria for current and lifetime PTSD, as well as for
other current and lifetime psychiatric disorders. This seems related to the earlier study
reviewed by Rosencheck and Fontana (1998), which found that help-seeking Vietnam
veterans with PTSD had more severe symptoms if their fathers were also veterans. The
description of the earlier study by Schwartz, Dohrenwend, and Levav (1994), also found
that children of traumatized parents had higher lifetime rates depression and anxiety. All
of these studies support the contention that children of traumatized parents are more
vulnerable to PTSD and other difficulties.

The second study compared the rates of PTSD for Holocaust survivors and their
adult offspring in a community sample. Yehuda found signiﬁcant correlations between
parents' and children’s PTSD symptoms. (She had similar ﬁndings in an earlier study,
Yehuda, Schmeidler, Giller, Siever, & Binder-Brynes 1998). She noted that, “Oﬂ’spring
of Holocaust survivors were signiﬁcantly more likely to develop PTSD in response to
their own traumatic events if their parents had chronic PTSD.” (p. 113). There were no
differences in reported stressful events between the offspring who did and did not

develop PTSD. There also did not appear to be a correlation between parents’ history of

40

chronic PTSD and other psychiatric diagnoses in their offspring. Yehuda’s ﬁnal study in
the series compared cortisol levels in children of Holocaust survivors and a control group.
She noted that cortisol levels are typically lower in trauma survivors with PTSD, and
explained that cortisol is a hormone released by the adrenal gland in times of stress. She
hypothesized that the lowered cortisol levels in trauma survivors with PTSD is related to
"the behavioral hyper-responsiveness of trauma survivors." (p. 116). Yehuda found that
children of Holocaust survivors had lower levels of cortisol than the control group, and
that those children of survivors with a history of PTSD accounted for this eﬁ‘ect. There
were no signiﬁcant differences between the groups on trauma exposure. A related study
(Y ehuda, Schmeidler, Elkin et al., 1998) found no signiﬁcant differences in levels of
cortisol excretion between Holocaust survivors and offspring of Holocaust survivors,
suggesting they are equally hyper-responsive. Yehuda et al. also found that offspring of
Holocaust survivors were more likely to endorse PTSD symptoms on self-report
measures than a control group. When children of Holocaust survivors identiﬁed their
parents' Holocaust experience as their own major traumatic event, these offspring had
lower cortisol levels and more PTSD symptoms than offspring who identiﬁed another
experience as their greatest trauma.

Yehuda, Schmeidler, Wainberg, Binder-Brynes, and Duvdevani (1998) compared
children of Holocaust survivors with a control group on past and current trauma and
PTSD symptoms. They found higher levels of current and lifetime PTSD and other
psychiatric disorders in children of Holocaust survivors than in the control group.
Approximately 25% of the children of Holocaust survivors identiﬁed their parents'

Holocaust experience as their own most distressing life event, even though there were no

41

items speciﬁcally asking about this event and many had experienced their own life-
threatening event. The authors recruited both a clinical, help-seeking sample as well as a
community sample of children of Holocaust survivors. No differences were found
between these subgroups.

In an unusual study, Weissmark and Giacomo (1993) compared children of
survivors with children of active members of the Nazi party during the Third Reich.
They discovered that members of both groups felt they did not know all of the
chronological details of their parents' wartime experiences and that their parents were
extremely ambivalent about communicating those experiences. Both groups reported an
overwhelming feeling of anxiety and fear in response to their parents’ style of
communication about their experiences. All of the participants had fantasies about their
parents’ wartime experiences, and were told by their parents that they could not
understand those times.

All of the above studies compared children of survivors with some other group.
A recent study (Yehuda, Schmeidler, Giller, Siever, & Binder-Brynes, 1998) compared
children of survivors with their parents who survived the Holocaust. The authors
examined post-traumatic stress symptoms and psychiatric diagnoses, and found a strong
relationship between the intensity of intrusive thoughts about the Holocaust between
survivors and their oﬁ’spring. A similar relationship was found for the impact of trauma
on the participants’ lives. The majority of survivors met the criteria for PTSD either
currently or in the past. Survivors who at some time met criteria for PTSD were more
likely to have children who developed PTSD in response to their own life traumas. The

authors indicated that groups of survivors and their children are heterogeneous, which

42

suggests that future research should focus on assessing the within-group variability of
children of survivors.

In addition to the individual studies reviewed above, there have been numerous
published reviews of the literature on children of Holocaust survivors (Baranowsky,
Young, Johnson-Douglas, Williams-Keefer, and McCarrey, 1998; Dasberg, 1987;
Kellermann, 2001; Last, 1988; and Solkoff, 1981, 1992). Dasberg (1987) concluded in
his review that children of survivors are a vulnerable population who demonstrate more
anxiety, lack psychosocial maturity, and feel that they have to be high achievers to
compensate for what has been lost. One study he reviewed (Solemon, Kotler, &
Mikulincer, 1988-1989) found that Israeli soldiers who were children of survivors had
more difficulty recuperating from combat reactions than a control group of soldiers. (A
ﬁnding which contradicts Solomon, 1995).

In stark contrast, Last (1988) reviewed several controlled studies that found no
differences between children of survivors and control groups on mental health outcomes.
He pointed out that earlier, uncontrolled studies tended to pathologize children of
survivors. He indicated that those studies were methodologically poor and were carried
out with “the premise that children of survivors must be adversely affected by their
parents” (p77). Last did review some methodologically sound studies that found
differences between children of survivors and controls, however, he felt that these
differences were not pathological. American children of survivors were found to
suppress hostile affect, and both Israeli and American children of survivors were found to

be more dependent than controls.

43

Last also reviewed a series of studies (Last & Klein, 1981; Last & Klein, 1984a;
Last & Klein, 1984b) that found that paternal traumatization was strongly related to a
host of child-rearing variables by both parents for male offspring. The researchers
assessed survivor traumatization on the basis of how the survivor had spent their time
during the Holocaust, with concentration camp survival assumed to be the most
traumatic. Male offspring indicated that maternal traumatization was related to decreased
harsh control, enforcement and intrusiveness. No relationship was found for female
oﬂ‘spring’s experience of child-rearing by their mothers and maternal traumatization, but
female oﬂ‘spring reported paternal traumatization was related to inconsistent paternal
discipline. Female offspring reported their fathers refrained from harsh controlling,
anxiety-provoking, or hostile expressions in child-rearing as a function of the girls’
mothers’ traumatization. This study also found that severity of parental traumatization
was related to lower assertiveness and active coping in their adolescent offspring, with
higher levels of preoccupation with nurturance, and with avoidance of inferiority. Degree
of parental traumatization was not found to be related to their offspring’s overall mental
health. This study reinforces the suggestion by Yehuda, Schmeidler, Giller, Siever, and
Binder-Brynes (1998) that children of survivors are not a homogenous population, and
indicates that level of parental traumatization is predictive of within-group differences.
However, it should be noted that in this study, the authors, not the survivors or their
offspring, determined level of trauma.

Solkoff (1981, 1992) conducted two reviews of the literature. In Solkoﬂ’ (1981),
most of the studies reviewed were clinical, theoretical, or anecdotal. Only four

experimental studies were reviewed, and of those, three found differences between

44

children of survivors and controls (Aleksandrowicz, 1973; de Graaf, 1975; & Sigal,
Silver, Rakoﬁ’, & Elfin, 1973). These studies found children of survivors to have more
difﬁculties on a wide variety of adjustment outcomes. However, Solkoff concluded that
each of these studies was methodologically unsound, citing post-hoe interpretations, lack
of description of participants, conclusions formed without evidence, etc. The fourth
study (Rustin, 1971) did not ﬁnd evidence of psychopathological differences between
children of survivors and controls. Solkoff concluded that Rustin’s study was “one of the
very few careﬁrlly controlled studies of the behavior of children of survivors” (p. 40).

A large number of empirical studies had been published between the time of
Solkoft’s initial review and his later one (Solkoff, 1992). Eighteen empirical studies
were examined in this review. Solkoff criticized the methodology of many of these
studies, but noted that the more methodologically sound studies found less evidence of
pathology among children of survivors. One study (Sigal & Weinfeld, 1987) found that
daughters of survivors were more likely to report paternal strictness than control females.
Another study that found children of survivors to be more anxious and paranoid than a
control group (Lichtman, 1984) was criticized by Solkoff for sampling biases. Several
studies examined the relationship between parental trauma and childrearing practices.
These studies either found no diﬁerences between children of survivors and controls or
were determined by Solkoff to have signiﬁcant methodological weaknesses. All of these
studies determined parental trauma by an a priori rating system of how the parent had
spent their time in the Holocaust. Solkoff (1981, 1992) suggested that methodologically

sound research on children of Holocaust survivors should include a control group of

45

Jewish children of immigrants, should use sampling procedures that avoid bias, and
should pilot test new instruments to establish their reliability and validity.

Baranowsky, Young, Johnson-Douglas, Williams-Keeler, and McCarey (1998)
examined the literature for evidence of the transmission of symptoms of PTSD ﬁ'om
Holocaust survivors to their children. They found support for the transmission of PTSD
in the clinical and anecdotal literature. The authors noted that the empirical studies
reviewed tended to ﬁnd less evidence of PTSD and other psychopathology in children of
survivors. However, they point out that many of the empirical studies are ﬂawed in their
methodology. In particular, the role of immigrant status versus survivor status as an
explanatory variable has not been fully explored.

Kellerrnann (2001) reviewed 35 studies of children of Holocaust survivors that
required matched assignments of participants to experimental and control groups. There
were few differences between children of survivors and control group participants when
non-clinical populations were studied. However, when clinical populations were
compared, the children of Holocaust survivors appeared to have some speciﬁc difficulties
with coping with stress and a higher vulnerability to PTSD. He suggested that children of
Holocaust survivors do not in general differ from the general population, but if they are
faced with additional stress "their latent vulnerability will become more manifest." (p.
43).

The current study proposes to examine within-group differences and so a control
group will not be utilized. Some of the studies reviewed above (Last, 1988;

Yehuda, Schmeidler, Giller, Siever, and Binder-Brynes, 1998) provide some evidence of

within-group diﬁ’erences in the population of children of Holocaust survivors. To date,

46

none of these studies have assessed parental traumatization ﬁ'om the perspective of the
child of the Holocaust survivor. The current study follows some of the recommendations
of Solkoff (1981, 1992), including the use of sampling procedures that avoid bias and
pilot testing a new instrument to establish its reliability and validity. Also,
since individuals’ attachment classiﬁcations are based on their perceptions of
relationships, it will be important to determine if perceptions of parental traumatization
are predictive of current adult attachment organization.
Attachment and the Holocaust

A literature search for studies on children of Holocaust survivors from an
attachment theoretical perspective yielded only three studies. The ﬁrst, by Bar-On et al.
(1998) proposed that children of Holocaust survivors are anxious/ambivalently attached
to their parents. The authors reviewed three studies that provide some indirect support
for their proposition. The studies are a mix of case studies and empirical studies, but
none set out to directly test the hypothesis that children of Holocaust survivors are
insecurely attached to their parents. In the ﬁrst study, a group of children of Holocaust
survivors in the Netherlands was compared to a control group. During structured
interviews, the children of survivors characterized their childhoods as having problems
with separations. They also reported not knowing the details of their parents’ Holocaust
experience. In the second study, children of survivors completed questionnaires that
revealed that the children of survivors were preoccupied with the pain of their parents.
The ﬁnal study reviewed is a case example of an outwardly successﬁrl Israeli man, who
clearly had difficulty integrating the reality of his father’s Holocaust experience with the

father he knew as an Israeli soldier. The authors indicate that Holocaust survivors are

47

likely to have unresolved trauma, which is linked in the attachment literature to insecure
attachment in children. However, they do not directly test this assumption.

In an anecdotal/theoretical paper, Wardi (1994) suggested that children of
survivors have dimculty with separation issues as they hold the expectations of the parent
to make up for all of the lost family members. Zeleznikow and Lang (1989) wrote an
editorial response to an article by Quadrio and Levy (1988). In it, they claim that
descriptions of families of survivors as “overattached” have unwarranted negative
connotations and that considering their histories, these families’ attachment to one
another are “the most healthy and human response” (p. 32).

Summary of Literature Review

The literature reviewed thus far provides strong evidence for the tenets of
attachment theory and the relationship between attachment security and trauma. Children
and adults who are traumatized are more likely to have insecure attachment styles. There
is also evidence for the intergenerational transmission of trauma, in that high rates of
concordance have been found between the attachment styles of various generations,
including grandparents, their children, and their grandchildren. Notably, parents
classiﬁed as “unresolved with respect to trauma or loss” appear especially likely to have
children classiﬁed as insecurely attached, speciﬁcally as “disorganized.” However, it
should also be noted that many people who are traumatized do not develop insecure
attachment styles, and some of those who do are able to change from an insecure
attachment style to a secure one (Cohn, Silver, Cowan, Cowan, & Pearson, 1992;

Egeland & Sroufe, 1981). There is some evidence that given corrective emotional

48

experiences with an appropriate attachment ﬁgure (potentially including a therapist),
individuals’ mental models can change.

Individuals who have survived the Holocaust have survived one of the most
signiﬁcant traumas of recorded history — the deliberate genocide of a people. It is
possible that some Holocaust survivors have achieved some resolution of their trauma,
most likely with the help of an attachment ﬁgure. There is some evidence that Holocaust
traumatization has affected the offspring of survivors, but this has not yet been examined
from an attachment theoretical framework. It seems likely that the oﬂ’spring who
perceive their parents as having been more traumatized by the Holocaust will themselves
be more likely to have an insecure attachment style.

The Pilot Study
Rationale

Currently, researchers’ attempts to assess Holocaust survivor’s level of
traumatization consist of researcher-deﬁned levels of traumatization. Several authors
have developed traumatization scales based on how the survivor spent the Holocaust,
with the assumption that those who spent it in a concentration camp would be more
traumatized than those who spent it in hiding. After an extensive literature search
revealed no suitable existing measure of parental traumatization from the Holocaust from
the perspective of the survivor or their children, a novel measure, the Perceived Parental
Holocaust Traumatization Scale was developed and validated.

Participants
This pilot study was completed with 46 adult children of Holocaust survivors to

assess the reliability and validity of a self—report measure of perceived parental Holocaust

49

traumatization. Mailing labels from a Midwest organization of children of Holocaust
survivors were obtained, and a random sample were sent consent forms and information
about the study. Individuals who expressed interest were mailed a survey packet and
were also asked to provide names of other potential participants.
Procedure

Once individuals were sent survey packets, they received up to two postcards to
encourage them to return the surveys. Individuals who returned a completed survey were
also interviewed about their experience in completing the survey. Thirty-six of the
participants who completed surveys were contacted for telephone interviews, the
remainder were considered not available after six unsuccessful attempts were made to
reach them. The interviews suggested other variables of interest, including country of
origin of the parent, level of religiosity of the adult child of a Holocaust survivor and
their parent, length of time the parent was in the camp, whether the parent lost children or
a spouse in the Holocaust, etc. The age of the parent during the Holocaust, whether they
had lost close family members during the Holocaust, and level of religious observance
were the predictors mentioned most often by the participants and those will be included
in the present study.
Measures

Demographic Questionnaire. This brief instrument was developed to collect
background information on the participants and their survivor parents. It asks the
participants’ age, their marital status, and level of education. It also has questions about
where their survivor parents were born, how old they were during the Holocaust, how

they spent the Holocaust, and where they went immediately following the Holocaust.

50

Clinical Trauma Assessment. (CTA; Ruch, Gartrell, Ramelli, & Coyne, 1991).
This is an l6-item instrument that allows an observer to rate an individual’s trauma
symptomatology. It was developed for clinicians to rate sexual assault victims, but the
symptoms are general in nature (e.g., depression, self-blame). Each item is rated on a 0-4
Likert scale, with 0 representing the symptom being not at all present and 4 representing
the symptom being present extremely often. Two copies were presented to the
participants in this study, with instructions to complete one if their mother was a
Holocaust survivor, the other if their father was the survivor, and both forms if both
parents were survivors. Construct validity of this scale was previously assessed to be
adequate by comparing CTA ratings completed by a crisis intervention worker with
victim’s self-reported trauma ratings on the Sexual Assault Symptom Scale (SASS, Ruch,
et al., 1991). Ten items are the same across both scales, and correlations are signiﬁcant
for each of them. This indicates that an independent rater perceived the victim as having
the same level of symptomatology as the victim herself. In the pilot study, a Cronbach’s
alpha coeﬂicient of r = .86 was achieved for the CTA version for fathers, and r = .89 for
mothers.

Communication Questionnaire. (CQ; Lichtman, 1984) This is a 19-item self-
report measure of the communication between Holocaust survivors and their offspring, as
assessed from the perspective of the offspring. The Communication Questionnaire
contains six factor-analytically derived subscales:

1. COM l-Mother’s frequent and willing discussion of her wartime experiences and

the transmission of factual information. [Sample item: How often have you and

51

your mother discussed her experiences during the war? a) practically/actually
never b) rarely c) from time to time d) frequently e)persistently].

. COM 2-Guilt-inducing communication by either parent. [Sample item: How
often have you heard statements akin to this one from your father

“For this I survived Auschwitz/Hitler!” in response to something you do

(did) which upsets him? a) practically/actually never b) rarely c) occasionally (I)
frequently e) usually].

. COM 3-Father’s frequent and willing discussion of his wartime experience and
the transmission of factual information. [Sample item: How often have you and
your father discussed his experiences during the War? a) practically/actually
never b) rarely c) from time to time d) frequently e) persistently].

. COM 4-Awareness of the Holocaust at a young age and its nonverbal presence in
the home, as conveyed by either parent. [Sample item: At what age, do you
recall having ﬁrst heard about your parents’ Holocaust experiences? a) around
the time I was in high school b) sometime in jr. high c) in elementary school (1)
before I started school e) I somehow always knew about it].

. COM 5-Indirect communication about the Holocaust, as conveyed by both mother
and father. [Sample item: How often were Holocaust experiences discussed
when your parents got together with friends or relatives, and you were within
earshot? a) practically/actually never b) rarely c) occasionally (1) frequently e)
usually].

. COM 6-Affective communication about the Holocaust, as conveyed by both

mother and father. [Sample item: When my father spoke of his Holocaust

52

experiences he would usually: a) make light of it/stress the comical or heroic

aspects b) speak of it in a matter of fact way c) sound very sad or angry d) be on

the verge of tears e) cry].
The author of this measure (Lichtman, 1984) found that a high degree of guilt-inducing,
indirect and affective communication was engaged in most frequently by parents who had
undergone the greatest trauma (as rated by their offspring) and by mothers who had
suffered the greatest loss of immediate family members. For male offspring, mothers'
ﬁequent and willing discussion of the Holocaust was related to the degree of trauma
undergone by mothers. 9 Communication that was conveyed at an early age for the
offspring was related to a very high degree of trauma for parents, and these parents
tended to have fewer children. A later study (Keller, 1988) found that guilt-inducing
communication was related to chaotic, rigid, disengaged and enmeshed family styles in
comparison to more balanced, healthy family styles. Keller also found that guilt-
inducing, affective, and early non-verbal communication was inversely correlated with
family satisfaction, adaptability, and cohesion, particularly for females. Keller also found
that "Fathers' open communication facilitated increased family cohesiveness, while guilt-
inducing and nonverbal communication decreased it." (p. 230). Older respondents were
also more likely to report that their parents engaged in indirect communication about the
Holocaust. Sorscher and Cohen (1997 ) found that maternal trauma (as rated by the
authors) was signiﬁcantly correlated with affective and negative communication. They
reported an alpha coeﬁcient of .83 for the total scale. In the pilOt study, an alpha

coefﬁcient of .83 was obtained for COMl, .70 for COM2, .65 for COM3, .42 for COM4,

53

.44 for COMS, and .21 for COM6. An alpha coefﬁcient of .71 was obtained for the total
scale.

Bem Sex Role Inventory. (B SR1; Bem, 1974) This is a 60-item self-report
instrument that assesses individuals’ sex roles. Participants are directed to rate the degree
to which each of 60 adjectives describes them on a scale of 1-7 (1=never or almost never
true, 7=always or almost always true). Individuals who score highly on the feminine
adjectives but not the masculine are characterized as “feminine.” Those who score highly
on the masculine adjectives but not the feminine are characterized as “masculine.”
Individuals who score highly on both masculine and feminine traits are characterized as
“androgynous.” “Acts as a leader” is an example of a "masculine" adjective and
“affectionate” is an example of a "feminine" adjective on the list. The “masculinity”
and “femininity” scales have high reported internal consistency, r = .86 and r = .80
respectively (Bern, 1974). One-month test-retest reliability is reported as r = .90 for
“masculinity”, r = .90 for “femininity”, and r = .89 for “androgyny.” (Bem, 1974). The
BSRI was shown to have discriminant validity based on low to modest correlations with
two other measures of Sex role (Bem, 1974).

The Intemal/Extemal Locus of Control Scale. (IE Scale; Rotter, 1966). This is a
29-item self-report measure of beliefs about locus of control. Participants are directed
to pick which of two statements most closely characterizes their beliefs. A sample item
is: “a) Children get into trouble because their parents punish them too much. b) The
trouble with most children nowadays is that their parents are too easy with them.” The
internal consistency, test-retest reliability and discriminant validity have been well-

established (Cardi, 1962; Franklin, 1963; Ladwig, 1963; and Strickland, 1962). Internal

54

consistency has been reported in various studies as ranging from r = .65 to r = .79, test-
retest reliability from r = .49 (one-month) to r = .83 (two months), and correlation with
intellectual measures from r = .03 to r = -.22. (Rotter, 1966).

The Perceived Parental Holocaust T raumatization Scale. (PPHT S; Berger &
Lopez, 1999). This is the instrument developed for this study. It contains 27 items rated
from 1 (very false) to 5 (very true). Items were initially generated after reviewing the
literature. Children of Holocaust survivors assessed the face validity of the items. It is
completed separately for mothers and fathers. A sample item is “My mother had
difﬁculty talking about the Holocaust." Adequate internal reliability, convergent validity
and discriminant validity was obtained in this pilot study. More speciﬁc details may be
found in the results section.
Results

The participants in this study had a mean age of 42 years, had received an average
of 17 years of formal education, and had an average of two children. Of 46 total
participants, 31 identiﬁed both parents as Holocaust survivors. Most of the participants’
mothers were originally ﬁ'om Germany (24 out of 46), while the participants’ fathers
primarily came from Poland (22 out of 46). When asked the age of their parents during
the Holocaust, mothers were most likely to be adolescents (12 were children, 17 were
adolescents, and 10 were adults). In contrast, fathers were reported to be primarily
adolescents and adults during the Holocaust (8 were children, 16 were adolescents, 18
were adults). Out of 37 mothers identiﬁed as Holocaust survivors, 21 were reported to
have spent the Holocaust in concentration camps, 21 in labor camps, 17 in a ghetto, 5 in

hiding, and 7 “other”. Participants indicated that “other” for their mothers included other

countries, an army camp, and the Gestapo. These categories were not mutually

exclusive, so that participants could note if their parent spent time in more than one place
during the Holocaust. Of 39 fathers reported to be Holocaust survivors, 25 were reported
to have been in concentration camps, 19 in labor camps, 13 in a ghetto, 8 in hiding, and 7
“other” (another country or with falsiﬁed papers). Interestingly, not a single participant
marked “don’t know” for the whereabouts of either parent during the Holocaust,
indicating at least minimal communication between the generations about this topic.
Approximately half of the participants reported that neither they nor anyone in their

family had sought professional help for issues related to the Holocaust.

An alpha coefficient of .76 for fathers and .83 for mothers was obtained for the
PPHTS, demonstrating that it has adequate internal consistency. The PPHTS for mothers
had a range from 55-100, while the range for the PPHT S for fathers was 54-103. This
demonstrates ‘ signiﬁcant within group variability in perceptions of parental
traumatization. The PPHTS demonstrated good convergent validity with another
measure of perceived trauma, the Clinical Trauma Assessment (CTA; Ruch, Gartrell,
Ramelli, & Coyne, 1991). The CTA for fathers correlated signiﬁcantly with the PPHTS
for fathers (.73, p < .001), and the CTA for mothers correlated signiﬁcantly with the
PPHTS for both mothers (.55, p < .001) and fathers (.61, p <.001). PPHTS scores for
fathers were signiﬁcantly correlated with COM4 of the Communication Questionnaire
(awareness of the Holocaust at a young age and its nonverbal presence in the home, as
conveyed by either parent, Lichtman, 1983; 1984). Children of survivors who perceived
their fathers as having been more traumatized by the Holocaust also reported that they

had heard about the Holocaust from a young age and that it pervaded their home. PPHTS

56

scores for perceptions of maternal traumatization were not signiﬁcantly related to how
the Holocaust was communicated. The PPHTS showed discriminant validity from a
measure of locus of control, the Rotter Internal/Extemal Locus of Control Scale (IE
Scale; Rotter, 1966). There were no signiﬁcant correlations between the PPHTS and the
IE Scale. Discriminant validity was also found for a measure of sex role, the Ben Sex
Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974). There were no signiﬁcant correlations between the
PPHTS and the BSRI.
Conclusions

The PPHT S appears to be a valid and reliable measure of the perceptions of
children of Holocaust survivors about their parents’ level of traumatization by the
Holocaust. The only other measure of this construct (Blumenthal, 1981) is very brief and
vague, and does not assess many aspects of parental traumatization that are captured by
the PPHTS. Other researchers have examined Holocaust survivors’ level of
traumatization by determining a priori which events were most likely to have been most
traumatic. However, this does not take into account the individual’s actual experiences in
the Holocaust nor the way they perceived and dealt with them. Since attachment theory
posits that an individual’s attachment style may be predicted by their parents’ level of
resolution of trauma, the PPHTS will be a very useful measure for determining the effect
of Holocaust traumatization on children of survivors’ attachment styles. The PPHTS also
demonstrated that there is a range of perceived parental Holocaust traumatization. This is
important information as numerous previous researchers have assumed homogeneity in

the level of traumatization and/or perceived traumatization of Holocaust survivors. The

57

children of survivors in this study demonstrated heterogeneity in their perceptions of their
parents’ levels of Holocaust traumatization.
The Present Study

Based on the literature previously reviewed, this study seeks to explore the
relationship between perceived parental traumatization in the Holocaust and attachments
to parents and romantic partners. Given that attachment theory has yielded strong
ﬁndings about the impact of parental traumatization on young children, it will be
important to discover if there is a similar impact on adult offspring. Previous attachment
research has demonstrated that parents with unresolved loss or trauma are more likely to
have their children categorized as having an insecure attachment style with respect to
their parents. The current study will explore whether perceived parental traumatization is
related to the adult offspring of Holocaust survivors' current attachments to their parents
and romantic partners.

Attachment theory has also demonstrated that individuals’ perceptions of their
parents’ caregiving, regardless of their historical accuracy, successfully predict the
individuals’ later attachments to their parents and to romantic partners. However, none
of the research to date has examined individuals’ perceptions of their parents’ level of
trauma, and certainly not to Holocaust traumatization speciﬁcally. Since the Holocaust is
one of the most devastating and traumatic events of our time, it provides a unique
opportunity to examine the impact of the deliberate genocide of a people. Certainly most
Jews today are inﬂuenced by the legacy of the Holocaust, and this inﬂuence is likely to
be especially strongly felt by those whose parents or other family members were directly

involved in it. However, to date there has been no systematic assessment of varying

Ur
go

levels of traumatization by the Holocaust from the perspective of the survivors’ oﬂ’spring,
nor how those levels have impacted later generations.

The current study proposes to assess individuals’ perceptions of the level of their
parents’ Holocaust traumatization. Based on research on survivors of the Holocaust and
their children, it is proposed that there will be differences in levels of perceived
traumatization, and these diﬁ’erences may be explained by such factors as parental
experience during the Holocaust (in a concentration camp, in a labor camp, in hiding,
etc.), parents’ age during the Holocaust, level of parental religiosity, country of origin,
etc. It is hypothesized that those individuals who survived a concentration camp
experience and were yOunger during the Holocaust will be particularly likely to be
perceived as having experienced greater levels of traumatization by the Holocaust.

It is further proposed that greater levels of perceived parental Holocaust
traumatization will be associated with lower levels of secure attachments to parents and
to romantic partners. Children of survivors (COS) who perceive their parents as having
been more traumatized are also predicted to be more emotionally
dependent/psychologically interconnected to their families. The speciﬁc hypotheses that
this study will address are as follows:

1) Parent-adult attachment styles among COS are related to perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization. Individuals who perceive their parents as having been
more traumatized will be more likely to have an insecure attachment to their
parents. High scores on the PPHTS will be associated with low scores on the P-

AASQ for mothers and for fathers.

59

2) COS who perceive their parents as having been more traumatized by the
Holocaust are more likely to have insecure attachments to their romantic partner
than those who perceive their parents as having been less traumatized. In this
case, higher scores on the PPHTS will be associated with higher anxiety and
avoidance scores on the EC R. The PPHTS will signiﬁcantly predict ECR scores
in a regression equation.

3) COS will generally display high levels of emotional dependence/psychological
interconnectedness with their families. Those with higher PPHTS scores are more
likely to have higher scores on the Psychological Interconnectedness subscale of
the MIS. Those COS who see their parents as more traumatized will have higher
levels of emotional dependence/psychological interconnectedness with their
families of origin. High scores on the PPHTS will be associated with high scores
on the MIS Psychological Interconnectedness scale.

It is notable that the ECR is a measure of the underlying dimensions (anxiety and
avoidance) of adult attachment style to an intimate peer. In contrast, the P-AASQ is a
measure of type of parent-adult attachment style, with respondents being classiﬁed into
one of four categories. An analysis of the assessment of dimensions versus types was
completed by Fraley and Waller (1998), who concluded that “adult attachment is best
represented by a dimensional model.” The ECR, having been developed by selecting the
best items of the extant measures of attachment, is the current state of the art in self-
report measurement of attachment to significant others. However, the P-AASQ will

provide additional information of interest as it assesses adults’ attachment to their

60

parents. The P-AASQ has the added beneﬁt of being able to be scored as both a

categorical and continuous measure of attachment style.

61

Chapter 3
Method

The purposes of the present study are to investigate (a) the perceptions of adult
children of Holocaust survivors regarding their parents’ level of traumatization, (b) the
impact of these perceptions on the adult children’s reported attachment styles with their
parents and with their romantic partners, and (c) the relationship between perceived
parental traumatization, emotional dependence/psychological interconnectedness, and
attachment security. This will help determine the heterogeneity of the population of
children of Holocaust survivors in terms of their perceptions of their parents’
traumatization, as well as determining the impact of this perceived traumatization on key
attachment relationships. Other variables that will be assessed include how the survivor
spent their time during the Holocaust, the survivor’s age during the Holocaust, the nature
of their losses during the Holocaust, and their level of religiosity. This will, therefore, be
the ﬁrst study to empirically determine which, if any, of these variables are associated
with traumatization.

Holocaust survivors will be operationally deﬁned as any Jew who survived Nazi
oppression and extermination attempts during World War II, 1939-1945. Their offspring,
born after this time period, are the targeted participants for this study.

Participants

A total of 173 adult children of Holocaust survivors were recruited to complete a
survey packet. Cohen (1992) recommended 85-97 participants to ensure enough
participants for either multiple regression or correlational analyses (.80 power for a

medium effect size and an alpha of .05). A decision was made to over sample in order to

62

compensate for missing data. It became apparent early in the data collection that some
participants did not complete some of the surveys. One hundred and nine participants
completed every item of the survey (except for some demographic questions), and it was
this data that was used for the analyses. Participants were recruited from a variety of
sources to ensure a diverse sample. The United States Holocaust Museum has an online
list of nationwide organizations for children of Holocaust survivors. These organizations
were contacted in order to request access to their mailing lists. One organization in
Georgia provided a list of approximately 150 children of Holocaust survivors, and they
were all contacted. A letter of introduction describing the study, a consent form, and an
addressed, stamped envelope was sent to all of the individuals on that list. Other
organizations that were unwilling to provide their mailing list were asked to either send
out the materials themselves or to provide information about the study in their
newsletters. A letter to the editor about the study and requesting participants was sent to
every Jewish newspaper in the country that listed an email address. Participants were also
recruited through the Internet, through Holocaust and second-generation listserves and
websites. About half of the participants completed surveys through the mail, while the
other half completed them online.

Seventy-six females (69.7%) and 31 males (28.4%) completed the surveys. Two
did not answer this question about their gender. The age of the participants ranged from
35-64, with a mean age of 47 years. The participants were highly educated. They had
completed a range of 12-26 years of education, with an average of 18 years of school.
Most of the participants (82) were married and living with their spouse. Eight indicated

they were never married, 10 reported they were divorced, and 5 were widowed. Four

()3

participants did not answer this question. The majority of participants reported that both
of their parents survived the Holocaust (64.2%). More of the parents were born in Poland
than in any other country (35.8% of mothers, 45.9% of fathers). Participants’ mothers
tended to be young during the Holocaust, with 32.1% reported to be a child at the time of
the Holocaust, 37.6% reported to be adolescents, and 24.8% reported to be adults. In
contrast, participants' fathers were primarily adults during the Holocaust (43%), with a
smaller number who were adolescents (34.9%) and even a smaller number who were
reported to be children (11%) during that time. F orty-two mothers (38.5%) and 53
fathers (48.6%) of participants had survived a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Thirty-three mothers and 43 fathers survived a labor camp, 27 mothers and 30 fathers
survived a ghetto, 32 mothers and 23 fathers survived in hiding during the Holocaust.
Nearly all of the participants knew the whereabouts of their parents during the Holocaust
- only 2 did not know how their mothers or fathers spent the Holocaust. Fifteen
participants reported that their mother was "somewhere else" than the above categories,
while 10 reported that their father was somewhere else. Nearly all of these reported that
their parent had escaped and was living elsewhere. Level of religiosity for parents during
the Holocaust was rated as a mean of 2.6 for both mothers and fathers, placing them in
the middle of the range for religious observance (l was deﬁned as non-religious and 5 as
highly observant). Both parents were primarily categorized as Orthodox Jews (34.9% for
mothers, 38.5% for fathers). Many participants (46.8%) reported that no one in their
family had sought professional help for issues related to the Holocaust. However, 12.8%

of participants reported that they had sought help themselves for these issues. Another

64

5.5% reported that they and a sibling had sought help, while 6.4% indicated that they did
not know if anyone in their family had sought help with these issues.
Procedure

The letter of introduction and consent form informed participants about the
general purpose of the study and informed them that their participation was strictly
voluntary. Those participants who were recruited online received an online letter of
introduction and consent form - they were then directed to an online version of the survey
once they completed the consent form. Participants learned that their responses will be
kept conﬁdential, as no names or identifying information will be reported.

All potential participants who returned the consent form were then mailed the
survey packet along with another addressed, stamped envelope (except for those who
completed the entire survey online). Those who completed the consent form online and
did not immediately complete the survey were emailed up to two reminders to complete
the survey. A previous pilot study revealed that most of this population is not interested
in monetary remuneration in return for participation (in fact some were offended by the
notion of a lottery to win some money). Therefore, no ﬁnancial compensation is
currently planned for participants. This writer informed participants that $1.00 would be
donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for every completed survey.
A copy of a summary of the ﬁndings will be made available to any interested participant.
Instruments

Demographic Questionnaire. This brief questionnaire was designed to gather
background information on the participants’ age, education, and marital or partnership

status. It also gathers information on their Holocaust survivor parent(s), including where

the survivor was born, how they spent the Holocaust (in a concentration camp, labor
camp, in hiding, etc.), losses they incurred during the Holocaust, how old they were
during the Holocaust, and where they went after the Holocaust. It also asks about the
family’s level of religiosity and whether anyone in the family has sought professional
help for issues related to the Holocaust.

Perceived Parental Holocaust T raumatization. (PPHTS: Berger & Lopez, 1999).
Participants were given two versions of this form, one for fathers and one for mothers,
depending on which parent was a Holocaust survivor. They were instructed to complete
both versions if both parents were survivors. Each version contains 27 items rated on a 1
(very false) to 5 (very true) likert scale. This questionnaire was designed to measure the
extent to which participants believe their parents were traumatized by the Holocaust as
well as how the parents communicated their Holocaust experience to their children.

This measure was previously pilot tested on a sample of 46 adult children of
Holocaust survivors. Please see the earlier section on the pilot study for information on
its reliability and validity. For the current study, a total trauma score was created by
using the total score on the PPHTS for participants who had one parent who survived the
Holocaust, and an average of the mother and father scores for those participants who had
two parents who survived the Holocaust. This total score was used in the analyses.

Experience in Close Relationships. (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998).
This 36-item questionnaire is a self-report measure of adult attachment security that was
derived ﬁ'om every other available measure of adult attachment. Individuals rate their
level of agreement with items on a 7-point rating scale (1=Disagree Strongly, 7= Agree

Strongly). The ECR is comprised of 2 scales: Anxiety and Avoidance. An example of

66

an item on the anxiety scale is “I worry about being abandoned.” An example of an item
on the avoidance scale is “I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down.” Internal
reliability for this measure has previously been reported as good, with Cronbach’s alpha
coefficients ranging from .89-.92 for the anxiety and .91-.95 for the avoidance scales
respectively (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Lopez & Gormley, 2002; Lopez,
Mauricio, Srrrith-Sirnko, Gormley, & Berger, 2001). T est-retest reliability has been
reported as .71 for the avoidance scale and .68 for the anxiety scale after six months, with
ﬁfty-seven percent of participants retaining the same attachment style across both
timepoints. (Lopez & Gormley, 2002). Men have been found to score higher on the
anxiety dimension than women, and to more clearly separate anxiety ﬁ'om avoidance
(MacDonald, 1999). Schirrner and Lopez (1998) found that both of the ECR scales
signiﬁcantly predicted self-reported symptoms among a sample of adult workers after
controlling for work stress and supervisor support. Lopez et a1. (2001) found that anxious
attachment was signiﬁcantly and negatively related to reactive coping, while avoidant
attachment was signiﬁcantly and negatively related to both reactive and suppressive
coping. Anxious attachment was signiﬁcantly and positively related to distress. The
ECR was described as having "the best psychometric properties" of four inventories of
adult attachment by Fraley, Waller, and Brennan (2000).

Parent-Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire. (P-AASQ, Behrens & Lopez,
1998). This is a self-report measure of attachment style between an adult and the adult’s
parent. It is based on the Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) measure of adult attachment
style. The participant is instructed to choose which one of four descriptive paragraphs

best describes their relationship with their parents. The four paragraphs represent one of

67

7’ 6‘

the four categories of attachment style: “secure , preoccupied”, “dismissive”, and
“fearful.” The participant is next instructed to rate each of the paragraphs on a 7-point
scale (1=not at all descriptive, 7=extremely descriptive) on the degree to which it is
descriptive of their relationship with their parent. This provides for both categorical and
continuous scoring of the P-AASQ. The authors note that the continuous scoring
provided for more robust ﬁndings in the pilot testing of the measure. There are two
forms of the measure, one for the relationship between the participants and their fathers
and one for the relationship between the participants and their mothers. A pilot study of
this measure found similar distributions of attachment styles between participants and
their parents as previous studies have found between participants and intimate partners.
For the P-AASQ Father, one-week test-retest coefficients for each category when scored
continuously are as follows: secure, r = .73; fearful, r = .76; preoccupied, r = .71; and
dismissive, r = .55. The parallel test-retest coeﬂicients for the P-AASQ Mother are:
secure, r = .83; fearful, r = .74; preoccupied, r = .68; and dismissive, r = .61. (Behrens &
Lopez, 1998). Lopez and Hsu (2002) reported that 77% of their sample retained the same
classiﬁcation of attachment style to father and 85% of the sample retained the same
classiﬁcation with their mother over a six-month period. Overall, correlations between
the attachment categories measured by the P-AASQ and other measures of adult
attachment as well as measures of self-esteem and trust were signiﬁcantly related and in
expected directions.

In the present study, a total security score was derived for the mother and father

version of the P-AASQ for the purposes of the analyses. The ratings for the three

68

insecure types of attachment were reverse-scored, and then combined with the ratings for
the secure category.

Multigenerational Interconnectedness Scale (MIS; Gavazzi & Sabateli, 1987).
This 31 item self-report questionnaire consists of three factor analytically derived
subscales: Financial, Functional, and Psychological Interconnectedness. It assesses
ﬁnancial reliance, sharing of daily routines, and emotional dependence on family
members. It was originally developed to assess relationships between adolescents and
their parents, but has been extended to use with adults and their parents (Mazor & Tal,
1996). An example of an item representing Financial Interconnectedness is "Family
members help me pay for large transportation costs (bus, airfare, etc.)." An example of
an item representing Functional Interconnectedness is "Family members watch TV. and
go to the movies with me." An example of Psychological Interconnectedness is "I feel
upset when family members do not approve of people I am intimate with." Participants
are instructed to circle a number from 1-7 that describes how often they experience each
item (1=never, 4 = sometimes, 7=always). Alpha coefﬁcients of .86, .82, and .84 for
Financial, Functional, and Psychological Interconnectedness have been reported (Gavazzi
& Sabatelli, 1987). Correlations between the subscales were moderate, ranging ﬁ'om .47
to .51 (Gavazzi & Sabatelli, 1988). The authors found that individuals who were older
and living on their own tended to have lower MIS scores than younger participants and
those living with their parents. This ﬁnding was also true for those participants whose
parents were divorced. Men have consistently scored lower on the MIS than women
(Gavazzi & Sabatelli, 1987, 1988, 1990). Psychological interconnectedness was

developed to measure aspects of the individuation process. The authors suggested that

69

high levels of psychological interconnectedness represent more emotional dependency on
family of origin, and lower levels of individuation. The wording on the instructions of
this measure was modiﬁed for the present study to specify "family of origin" to provide
clariﬁcation for those participants who had created their own family of spouse and/or
children. This change was supported by the primary author (S. M. Gavazzi, personal
communication, November 20, 2002).

Analysis

Correlations and analysis of variance tests were used to determine whether any of
the background variables ﬁrarticipants’ age, gender, years of eddcation, age of parent,
location of parent during the Holocaust, and parents’ level of religiosity) were
signiﬁcantly related to attachment to partner. Several of the background variables were
signiﬁcantly related to the participants’ attachment to their partners. These included
where the parents were born, the use of therapy, and participants’ marital status.
Participants with mothers from Romania were signiﬁcantly more avoidantly attached to
their partners than participants with mothers from Hungary or Poland. Participants
whose fathers were born in Poland were more avoidantly attached to their partners than
participants whose fathers were born in Hungary.

The relationship between the participants’ attachment to their partner and their
perception of their parents’ level of traumatization was initially tested with a correlation
coeﬂicient. Later, perceived parental traumatization was included in the regression
model. It was predicted that the level of perceived parental traumatization would be

signiﬁcantly related in a negative direction with secure attachment to partner.

70

Chapter 4
Results

This chapter describes the results of the analyses. It begins with a comparison of
characteristics of those participants who completed every item of the survey (except for
some demographic questions), and those participants who skipped some of the items and
were thus excluded from subsequent analyses. Descriptions of each of the variables
follow, and then results pertaining to the main hypotheses and the post-hoe exploratory
analyses are presented.
Participants who completed and did not complete every item

The participants who completed the whole survey packet (n=109) were compared
with those who skipped some items (n=63) on their gender distribution, age, years of
education, and marital status. The mean scores of the ECR, PPHT S, MIS, and P-AASQ
were also compared for the two groups. No differences were found between the groups
on any of the variables except age. Those participants who completed every item tended
to be a little younger (M=46.98, SD=.65) than those who skipped some items (M=49.33,
SD=.74), t(169)=2.30, p<.05. All subsequent analyses are based on those participants
who completed every item of the survey.
Instruments

Instrument ranges, means, standard deviations, and reliability estimates are
summarized in Table l. The ECR Avoidant subscale ranged ﬁ'om 18-109, with a mean
of 49.43. An alpha coefficient of .93 was obtained for this subscale. The ECR Anxiety
subscale ranged from 18-126, with a mean of 64.72. An alpha coefﬁcient of .94 was

obtained for this subscale. The PPHTS total trauma scale ranged from 51-108, with a

71

mean score of 79.93. A Cronbach’s alpha coefﬁcient of .85 was obtained for this scale.
The P-AASQ total security scale for mothers ranged from 5-28, with a mean of 19.78.
The P-AASQ total security scale for fathers ranged from 8-28, with a mean of 21. 14. An
alpha coeﬂicient of .72 was obtained for both the mother and father total security scales.
Scores on the MIS Psychological Interconnectedness subscale ranged from 23-
101, with a mean of 62.77. Scores on the MIS Financial Interconnectedness subscale
ranged from 4-46, with a mean of 19.12. Finally, scores on the MIS Functional
Interconnectedness subscale ranged from 8-54, with a mean of 26.56. Alpha coefﬁcients

on these three subscales ranged from 78-92.

72

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics

 

Measure

Scale

SD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scale Range- 0.
Range- Actual
Possible
Attachment to Partner
ECR Avoidance 18—126 18-109 49.43 23.29 .93
ECR Anxiety 18-126 18-126 64.72 25.92 .94
Perception of Parental Trauma
PPHTS Total Trauma 27-135 51-108 79.93 12.36 .85
Attachment to Parent
PAASQ-Mothers 4-28 5-28 19.78 6. 10 .72
PAASQ—Fathers 4-2 8 8-28 21.14 5.86 .72
Dependency on Family of Origin
MIS Psychological 15-105 23-101 62.77 18.24 .92
MIS Financial 8-56 446 19.12 9.65 .78
MIS Functional 8-56 8-54 26.56 10.96 .87

 

Table 2 exhibits a comparison of the means and standard deviations between the

participants in this study and those of a previous study (Lopez, Mitchell, & Gormley,

2002) using the ECR for the anxiety and avoidance scales. The previous study utilized a

73

 

sample of college students. A t-test comparing the means of these two groups found no
signiﬁcant differences on either anxiety or avoidance. This suggests that in general,
children of Holocaust survivors had similar patterns of attachment to their romantic
partners as did a sample of college students.

Table 2

Experiences in Close Relationships Avoidance and Anxiety Scales comparison with this
study and college students (Lopez, Mitchell, & Gormley, 2002).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiences in Current Stu dy Previous Study
Close Relationships (College Students)
Scales '
M SD M SD
Avoidance 49.43 23.29 47.63 18.59
Anxiety 64. 72 25.92 63 .06 21.26

 

 

 

 

 

Table 3 exhibits a comparison of the means and standard deviations between the
participants in this study and those of a previous study (Gavazzi, Sabatelli, & Reese-
Weber, 1999) using the MIS for the Psychological, Financial, and Functional
Interconnectedness Scales. The previous study utilized a sample of college students. A t-
test comparing the means of these two groups found signiﬁcant differences on each scale
of the MIS. The current sample (M=4. 19, SD=1.22) scored signiﬁcantly higher on
Psychological Interconnectedness than the previous sample (M=3.8, SD=0.9),
((105)=3.26, p<.01. However, the current sample scored signiﬁcantly lower on Financial
Interconnectedness (M=2.43, SD=1.20) than the previous sample (M=4.3, SD=1.3),
t(105)= - 16.00, p<.001. Similarly, the current sample scored signiﬁcantly lower on

Functional Interconnectedness (M23 .32, SD=1.37) than the previous sample (M=4.2,

74

 

SD=1.0), t(105)= - 6.61, p<.001. This suggests that in general, children of Holocaust
survivors had higher levels of psychological interconnectedness but lower levels of
ﬁnancial and ﬁrnctionalinterconnectedness than a group of college students. All three
scales have previously been found to be negatively associated with age (Gavazzi &
Sabatelli, 1988, Gavazzi, Sabatelli, & Reese-Weber, 1999). Therefore, since the current
sample (M=46.98) is signiﬁcantly older than the previous sample (M=20.4),
t(107)=41.04, p<.001, lower scores would be expected for all three scales.

Table 3

Multigenerational Interconnectedness Psychological, Financial, and Functional

Interconnectedness Scales comparison between this study and a previous study (Gavazzi,
Sabatelli, & Reese-Weber, 1999).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIS Qgrrent Study Previous Study t
Dimensions
M SD M SD
Psychological 4.18 1.22 3.8 .9 3.23”
Financial 2.43 1.20 4.3 1.3 -16.00***
Functional 3.32 1.37 4.2 1.0 -6.62***

 

 

 

 

 

 

**p<.01, ***p<.001

Table 4 displays the correlations between participants’ age, years of education,
parents’ level of religiosity, and the study variables (attachment to partner and parent,
perceived parental trauma, and family interconnectedness). Levels of parental religiosity
during the Holocaust were signiﬁcantly intercorrelated for mothers and fathers. None of
the other background variables were signiﬁcantly related to each other or to the study

variables.

 

Table 4

Correlation of Age, Years of Education, and Parents’ Religiosity with Study Variables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Age Years of Mother’s Father’s
Education Religiosity Religiosity
Age - .04 .03 .08
Years of Education .04 - -. 12 -.06
Mother’s Religiosity .03 -. 12 - .52”
Father’s Religiosity .08 -.O6 .52** -
ECR .1 l .03 -.O6 .06
Avoidance
ECR .01 «.07 -. 12 -.08
Anxiety
P-AASQ -.O4 .03 -.OO -.02
(Mothers)
P-AASQ -. 12 .1 l .03 .11
(Fathers)
PPHTS Total .13 -. 16 .03 .15
Trauma
MIS Psychological -.09 -.06 -.06 -.04
MIS Financial -.13 .02 -.02 -.04
MIS Functional .01 -.03 -.06 .04
**p<.01

Table 5 displays the correlations between the study variables. The ECR

Avoidance and Anxiety scores are signiﬁcantly related to each other as well as the

P-AASQ for fathers, the PPHTS total trauma score, and the MIS Psychological

Interconnectedness subscale. The ECR Anxiety scores are also signiﬁcantly related to

the P-AASQ for mothers. The P-AASQ for mothers and fathers are also signiﬁcantly

related to each other as well as the PPHTS total trauma score and the MIS Functional

Interconnectedness subscale. The PPHTS total trauma score is also signiﬁcantly related

to the MIS Psychological and Financial Interconnectedness subscales. The MIS

76

 

Psychological and Financial Interconnectedness scales are signiﬁcantly intercorrelated, as

are the MIS Financial and Functional Interconnectedness scales.

77

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Table 6 is a comparison of gender means and standard deviations with study
variables. T-tests indicate that levels of Psychological Interconnectedness were
signiﬁcantly different between men and women. Women scored higher on Psychological
Interconnectedness than men, a ﬁnding that replicates previous ﬁndings for this scale
(Gavazzi, Sabatelli, & Reese-Weber, 1999; Mazor & Tal, 1996).

Table 6

Gender Means and Standard Deviations on Study Variables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Men omen
M SD M SD 1
ECR Avoidance 54.23 23 .99 47.16 23.05 1.42
ECR Anxiety 58.55 21.55 67.27 27.45 -1.58
P-AASQ 19.79 5.95 19.82 6.05 -.02
(Mothers)
P-AASQ 20.89 6.32 21.20 5.77 -.24
(Fatherg
PPHTS Total 76.73 10.39 81.05 12.92 -1.65
Trauma
MIS Psychological 54.55 14.96 65.71 18.34 -2.99**
MIS Financial 17.29 10.07 20.14 9.43 -1.38
MIS Functional 27.23 13.37 26.22 10.00 .42
**p<.01

Table 7 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study

variables by the participants’ marital status. The AN OVA to evaluate the relationship

between marital status and avoidant attachment to partner was signiﬁcant, F (3, 101),

p<.05. Follow-up tests were conducted to evaluate pairwise diﬂ‘erences among the

means. The test of homogeneity of variances was non-signiﬁcant, p=.351, therefore the

79

 

Tukey test, which assumes equal variances, was used. There were signiﬁcant diﬂ‘erences

in mean scores of participants who were married and those who were divorced.

Participants who were divorced were signiﬁcantly more avoidantly attached to their

partners than those who were married and living with their spouse. None of the other

study variables were signiﬁcantly related to marital status.

Table 7

Comparison of Marital Status with Study Variables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Married Never Divorced Widowed
Married
M SD M SD M SD M SD F

ECR 46.98 22.78 50.00 22.90 71.60 24.46 45.00 7.07 362*
Avoidance

ECR 62.26 26.96 72.88 23.59 77.90 21.04 62.00 19.48 1.38
Anxiety

P—AASQ 20.11 6.11 21.57 6.12 20.11 5.75 14.60 3.05 1.53
(Mothers) .

P-AASQ 21.32 5.80 19.14 7.15 20.25 7.03 22.4 5.41 .42
(Fathers)
PPHTSTotal 79.77 13.04 76.88 4.58 79.13 11.25 89.90 5.95 1.29
Trauma

MIS 62.39 18.26 59.75 10.67 66.20 21.68 59.20 23.26 .25
Psychological

MIS 18.87 9.68 22.38 10.69 19.10 8.50 15.60 9.07 .54
Financial

MIS 27.43 11.35 24.75 12.00 23.50 9.43 23.60 7.57 .60
Functional
*p<.05

Table 8 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study

variables by where the participants’ mothers were born. The ANOVA to evaluate the

relationship between where participants’ mothers were born and avoidant attachment to

partner was signiﬁcant, F (4,88), p<.01. Follow-up tests were conducted to evaluate

pairwise diﬂ‘erences among the means. The test of homogeneity of variances was non-

80

 

signiﬁcant, p=.694, therefore the Tukey test, which assumes equal variances, was used.
There were signiﬁcant differences in mean scores of participants whose mothers were
from Romania and those whose mothers were from Hungary or Poland. Participants
whose mothers were from Romania were signiﬁcantly more avoidantly attached than
participants whose mothers were from Hungary or Poland. The AN OVA to evaluate the
relationship between where participants’ mothers were born and anxious attachment to
partner was also signiﬁcant, F (4, 88), p<.05. Follow-up tests were conducted to evaluate
pairwise differences among the means, and there were no signiﬁcant diﬁ‘erences among
the pairs. The AN OVA to evaluate the relationship between where participants’ mothers
were born and Financial Interconnectedness was also signiﬁcant, F(4, 85), p<.05.

F ollow-up tests were conducted to evaluate pairwise differences among the means. The
test of homogeneity of variances was signiﬁcant, p=.024, therefore the Dunnett C test,
which does not assume homogeneity of variances, was used. There were signiﬁcant
differences in the mean scores of participants whose mothers were born in the United
States and those whose mothers were born in Germany. Participants whose mothers were
born in the United States were more ﬁnancially dependent/interconnected with their

families of origin than those participants whose mothers were born in Germany.

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Table 9 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study
variables by where the participants’ fathers were born. The ANOVA to evaluate the
relationship between where participants’ fathers were born and avoidant attachment to
partner was signiﬁcant, F (5,88), p<.05. Follow-up tests were conducted to evaluate
pairwise differences among the means. The test of homogeneity of variances was
signiﬁcant, p=.016, therefore the Dunnett C test, which does not assume homogeneity of
variances, was used. There were signiﬁcant differences in mean scores of participants
whose fathers were from Hungary and those whose mothers were from Poland.
Participants whose fathers were from Poland were signiﬁcantly more avoidantly attached

than participants whose fathers were from Hungary.

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Table 10 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study
variables by the mother’s age at the time of the Holocaust. The scores on Financial
Interconnectedness varied signiﬁcantly by mother’s age at the time of the Holocaust.
Scores on the other study variables did not differ signiﬁcantly by mother’s age at the time
of the Holocaust. The test of homogeneity of variances was non-signiﬁcant, p=.505,
therefore the Tukey test, which assumes equal variances, was used. There were
signiﬁcant diﬂ‘erences in mean scores of participants whose mothers were adolescents as
opposed to children or adults at the time of the Holocaust. Participants whose mothers
were adolescents at the time of the Holocaust scored higher on Financial
Interconnectedness than those whose mothers were either children or adults.

Table 10

Comparison of Mother’s Age During the Holocaust with Study Variables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Child Adolescent Adult
M SD M SD M SD F
ECR 45.31 23.84 52.76 22.42 49.37 23.72 .97
Avoidance
ECR 60.86 26.83 63.32 27.70 69.23 23.21 .95
Anxiety
P-AASQ 20.14 6.60 19.10 5.89 20.42 5.72 .43
(Mothers)
P-AASQ 22.52 5.53 20.03 5.93 21.25 6.25 1.63
(Fathers)
PPHTSTotal 77.81 13.83 78.88 11.91 82.32 10.37 1.10
Trauma
MIS 56.65 19.11 63.60 18.54 67.46 15.40 2.86
Psychological
MIS 17.00 9.07 22.48 9.99 16.39 8.56 458*
Financial
MIS 26.18 11.80 26.05 9.51 26.54 12.15 .02
Functional
*p<.05

85

 

Table 11 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study
variables by the father’s age at the time of the Holocaust. The ANOVA to evaluate the
relationship between father’s age at the time of the Holocaust and psychological
dependence/interconneCtedness with family of origin was signiﬁcant, F (3, 93), p<.05.
Follow-up tests were conducted to evaluate pairwise diﬁ’erences among the means, and
there were no signiﬁcant differences among the pairs. Scores on the other study
variables did not differ signiﬁcantly by father’s age at the time of the Holocaust.

Table 11

Comparison of Father’s Age During the Holocaust with Study Variables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_..___Child W Agni;
M SD M SD M SD F
ECR Avoidance 47.17 26.66 45.08 22.81 50.51 23.05 .60
ECR Anxiety 74.75 32.40 58.00 23.45 65.45 26.09 2.41
P-AASQ 20.83 7.22 21.58 5.52 19.25 5.63 2.29
(Mothers)
P-AASQ 21.33 5.93 22.28 5.56 20.70 5.82 .76
(Fathers)
PPHTS Total 76.17 16.17 79.30 11.43 80.48 12.18 .41
Trauma
MIS Psych0|0gi¢al 68.73 14.06 58.65 19.63 62.94 16.35 3.00*
MIS Financial 22.27 9.24 19.35 10.15 18.59 9.65 .45
MIS Functional 23.91 7.61 28.73 11.04 25.59 11.25 .85
P<.05

 

 

 

Table 12 compares the means and standard deviations for each of the study

variables by whom, if anyone, in the participant’s family sought therapy related to the

86

 

Holocaust. The ANOVA to evaluate the relationship between participation in therapy
and the study variables was signiﬁcant for anxious attachment F (4, 91), p<.05 and
perceived parental Holocaust traumatization F (4, 91), p<.05. F ollow-up tests were
conducted to evaluate pairwise differences among the means, and there were no
signiﬁcant differences among the pairs for either anxious attachment or perceived

parental Holocaust traumatization.

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Analyses

Primary Hypothesis: Children of survivors who view their parents as having
more unresolved trauma from the Holocaust will have a higher percentage of insecure
attachments to their parents and their romantic partners than children of survivors who
view their parents as having more completely resolved the trauma of the Holocaust.

Correlations between the ECR, P-AASQ, and PPHTS supported the above
hypothesis (see Table 13). Low scores on the ECR Avoidance and Anxiety scales
indicate low levels of anxiety and avoidance in relationships with signiﬁcant others, or
secure attachments to partners. High scores on the P-AASQ mother and father version
indicate secure attachments to mother and father respectively, and high scores on the
PPHTS indicate high perceived levels of parental traumatization by the Holocaust.
Therefore, high scores on the PPHTS should be associated with‘high scores on the ECR
Anxiety and Avoidance scales and low scores on the P-AASQ Mother and Father scales.
The intercorrelation matrix below demonstrates a signiﬁcant positive relationship
between the ECR and the PPHTS, and a signiﬁcant negative relationship between the

P-AASQ and the PPHTS.

89

Table 13

Correlation Matrix of Attachment and Perceived Trauma measures

 

P-AASQ

 

 

 

 

 

 

ECR ECR P-AASQ PPHTS
Avoidance Anxiety (Mothers) (FathersL
ECR - .45** -.16 -.33** .23*
Avoidance
ECR .45M - -.22* -.45** .26“
Anxiety
P-AASQ -.16 -.22* - .46** -.42**
(Mothers)
P—AASQ -.33** -.45** .46** - -.25*
(Fathers)
PPHTS .23* .26** -.42** -.25* -

 

 

 

 

 

 

*p<.05, **p<.01

Secondary hypothesis: Adult children of Holocaust survivors will generally

display high levels of emotional dependence/psychological interconnectedness with their

families of origin. Those with higher perceived parental traumatization are more likely to

be psychologically interconnected with their families. Adult children of Holocaust

survivors did display higher levels of psychological interconnectedness than a control

group ﬁ'om a previous study (See Table 3). Psychological interconnectedness to family

of origin was related to perceived parental Holocaust traumatization in the expected

direction. The Psychological Interconnectedness subscale of the MIS was signiﬁcantly

and positively related to the PPHTS (r=.231, p<.05).

Regression Analyses: While the above correlational analyses demonstrate

relationships among the key variables, a regression analysis was necessary to develop a

predictive model. Six regression models were run and compared to determine the “best”

model for each dependent variable (ECR Avoidance and ECR Anxiety). These six

90

 

models were compared on the basis of eight procedures: the SGMASQ, the Akaike
information criterion (AIC), the ﬁnite prediction error (FPE), the generalized cross
validation (GCV), the Harman & Quinn (HQ), the Rice, the Schwarz, and the Shibata.
Each of these procedures multiplies the residual sum of squares (ESS) by a penalty factor
that depends on the complexity of the model. The regression model with the lowest value
of a criterion statistic on each of these procedures is determined to be preferable. Based
on this comparison, the chosen model to predict avoidant attachment utilized perceived
parental Holocaust traumatization, attachment to father, and psychological
interconnectedness to family of origin, controlling for age and gender. This combination
of predictor variables was signiﬁcantly related to avoidant attachment to partner F (5,
94)=4.62, p<.001. The sample multiple correlation coefﬁcient was .44, indicating that
approximately 20% of the variance of the avoidant attachment to partner can be
accounted for by a linear combination of the other variables. The best model for the
regression equation with anxious attachment as the criterion variable included marital
status, perceived parental Holocaust traumatization, attachment to father, and
psychological interconnectedness to family of origin, controlling for age and gender.
This combination of predictor variables was signiﬁcantly related to anxious attachment to
partner F (6, 90)=15.02, p<.001. The sample multiple correlation coefﬁcient was .71,
indicating that approximately 50% of the variance of the anxious attachment to partner
can be explained by the other variables.

Table 14 demonstrates the relative strengths of the individual predictors for the
avoidant attachment to partner model. As expected, there was a negative relationship

between secure attachment to parent and avoidant attachment to partner. Perceived

9]

parental traumatization and psychological interconnectedness each had a positive
relationship to avoidant attachment to partner. The bivariate correlations were signiﬁcant
for P-AASQ total security score for fathers (-.32, p<.05), and MIS Psychological
Interconnectedness (.24, p<.05).

Table 14

Correlations between each predictor and ECR Avoidant Attachment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Predictors Correlations between Partial correlations
predictor and Avoidant between predictor and
Attachment Avoidant Attachment
Age .10 - .08
Gender -.07 -.15
PPHTS .26 .18
P—AASQ (Fathers) -.32* -.26*
MIS Psychological .24* .24*

 

 

 

*p<.05
Figure 1 displays the predicted and observed standardized residuals for the

Avoidant Attachment regression model.

92

 

Figure l

ECR Avoidance Standardized Regression Residuals

1.00

 

Expected
Cumulative
Probabilities _75

.50

 

 

 

 

0.00 .25 .50 .'75 1.00

Observed Cumulative Probabilities

Table 15 demonstrates the relative strengths of the individual predictors for the
anxious attachment to partner model. As expected, there was a negative relationship
between secure attachment to parent and anxious attachment to partner. Perceived

parental traumatization‘and psychological interconnectedness each had a positive

93

relationship to anxious attachment to partner. The bivariate correlations were signiﬁcant

for P-AASQ total security score for fathers (-.45, p<.001), and Psychological

Interconnectedness (.55, p<.001).

Table 15

Correlations between each predictor and ECR Anxious Attachment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Predictors Correlations between Partial correlations
predictor and Anxious between predictor and
Attachment Anxious Attachment

Ag; .01 .02
Gender .20 .05
Marital Status -. 15 -. 16
PPHTS .32 .19

P-AASQ (Fathers) -.45*** -.45***

MIS Psychological .55*** .54***

 

 

 

***p<.001

94

 

Figure 2 displays the predicted and observed standardized residuals for the
Anxious Attachment regression model.
Figure 2

ECR Anxiety Standardized Regression Residuals

 

 

 

 

 

Expected 1.00
Cumulative
Probabilities
.50'
.25 . ..
0.00 f
0.00 .'25 .'50 .75 1.00
Observed Cumulative Probabilities
Summary of Findings

The results of this analysis provide evidence that security of attachment to partner
is predicted by perceived parental trauma, psychological interconnectedness in the family
of origin, attachment to father and marital status. Participants who perceived their
parents as more traumatized by the Holocaust, were insecurely attached to their fathers,
and were more emotionally dependent/psycho]ogically interconnected with their family

of origin were more likely to be avoidantly attached to their romantic partners.

95

Participants who were not married, perceived their parents as more traumatized by the
Holocaust, were insecurely attached to their fathers, and were more emotionally
dependent/psychologically interconnected with their family of origin were more likely to
be anxiously attached to their partners. These ﬁndings will be explored in more detail in

the following chapter.

96

Chapter 5

Discussion

Summary of Results

This study was conducted to determine if perceived parental Holocaust

traumatization is predictive of individuals’ attachment security. Three primary

hypotheses were tested:

1)

2)

3)

Parent-adult attachment styles among COS are related to perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization. Individuals who perceive their parents as having been
more traumatized will be more likely to have an insecure attachment to their
parents. High scores on the PPHTS will be associated with low scores on the
P-AASQ Mother and Father scales.

COS who perceive their parents as having been more traumatized by the
Holocaust are more likely to have insecure attachments to their romantic partner.
In this case, higher scores on the PPHTS will be associated with higher scores on
the ECR Avoidance and Anxiety scales. The PPHTS will signiﬁcantly predict
ECR Avoidance and Anxiety scores in a regression equation.

COS will generally display high levels of emotional dependence/psychological
interconnectedness with their families. Those COS who see their parents as more
traumatized will have higher levels of emotional dependence/psychological
interconnectedness with their families of origin. Those with higher PPHTS scores
are more likely to have higher scores on the Psychological Interconnectedness

subscale of the M S.

97

The ﬁrst hypothesis, concerning the relationship between perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization and attachment to parent, was supported by the analyses.
Secure attachment to both parents was signiﬁcantly negatively correlated with perceived
parental Holocaust traumatization.

The second hypothesis was also supported by the analyses. Individuals who
perceived their parents as having been more traumatized by the Holocaust were more
avoidantly and anxiously attached to their partners. The regression analysis determined
that perceived parental Holocaust traumatization predicted both avoidant and anxious
attachment to partner. '

The third hypothesis was supported by the analyses. Adult children of Holocaust
survivors did display higher levels of psychological interconnectedness than a group from
a previous study. There was a signiﬁcant relationship between psychological
interconnectedness and perceived parental Holocaust traumatization. Individuals who
perceived their parents as having been more traumatized by the Holocaust were more
likely to be psychologically interconnected with their families of origin.

Secondary hypotheses concerned the relationship between the background
variables, perceived parental Holocaust traumatization, and attachment security. As
expected, marital status was signiﬁcantly related to attachment to partner, with divorced
participants more avoidantly attached to their partners than married participants.
Interestingly, marital status was not signiﬁcantly related to anxious attachment to partner.
However, marital status was a predictor in the anxious attachment regression model, but
not the avoidant attachment regression model. A review of the literature did not reveal

any relevant research on the relationship between attachment and marital status, so more

98

research will be necessary to clarify the relationship between marital status and
attachment to partner.

The participants’ parents’ country of origin was related to participants’
attachments to their partners. Participants whose mothers were born in Romania were
signiﬁcantly more avoidantly attached than those whose mothers were ﬁ'om Hungary or
Poland. Mothers’ country of origin was also signiﬁcantly related to participants’ anxious
attachment to partner. Participants whose fathers were born in Poland were signiﬁcantly
more avoidantly attached to their partners than those whose fathers were born in
Hungary. There were some major cultural differences in how individuals ﬁ'om diﬁ‘erent
countries experienced the Holocaust, and this might partially explain these ﬁndings.
Poland lost 90% of its Jewish population, Hungary 70%, and Romania 50%
(Dawidowicz, 1975). Poland was occupied immediately in the war (September 1, 1939),
and suffered the greatest loss of Jewish life (three million Jews killed). Most Jews in
prewar Poland were lower-middle-class workers. They were subjected to terror and
random violence, then ghettoized, and ﬁnally deported to death camps. In contrast, Jews
were predominantly middle-class in Hungary. Hungary was not occupied by Germany in
force until March 1944, at which time mass deportations took place. Over 450,000
Hungarian Jews “were deported, murdered, or died under German occupation.”
(Dawidowicz, 1975, p. 382-383).

Participation in therapy was signiﬁcantly related to both attachment to partner and
to perceived parental Holocaust traumatization. It is difﬁcult to draw conclusions about
these ﬁndings as no signiﬁcant differences emerged in the analyses of the pairwise

comparisons. However, one interesting trend is that of participants whose mothers

99

engaged in therapy related to the Holocaust — those participants reported less anxious
attachments to their partners and less perceived traumatization of their parents. It is
possible that mothers’ participation in therapy had a buffering eﬁ‘ect for themselves and
their offspring. Again, further research will be necessary to clarify these ﬁndings.

None of the other background variables were related to perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization or to attachment. Since some previous researchers determined
parental traumatization on the basis of where the survivor spent the Holocaust, these
ﬁndings put that practice into question. Sorscher and Cohen (1997) and Last and Klein
(1981, 1984a, 1984b) all determined parental traumatization based on a priori
expectations. They expected that individuals who spent the Holocaust in concentration
camps would be more traumatized than individuals who spent the Holocaust in other
ways (such as in a ghetto, labor camp, or in hiding). The current research does not
support this assumption. Perceived parental traumatization was not related to where
participants’ parents spent the Holocaust. Similarly, in contrast to suggestions generated
by the previous pilot study, perceived parental traumatization was not related to parents’
level of religiosity or their age at the time of the Holocaust.

Interestingly, the comparison of regression models determined that the strongest
model for both avoidant and anxious attachment was one which ”included attachment to
father as a predictor for attachment to partner, but not attachment to mother. This may be
due to the fact that the sample was predominated by females, who may be more likely to
base their model for attachment to partner on their model of their relationship with their

fathers.

100

Comparison to Previous Studies

Two primary areas of literature were reviewed for this study: the literature on
attachment theory and the literature on COS. The present study supports and extends the
research in both of these areas, and integrates them in a way that has not previously been
done. Research in attachment theory has previously found relationships between parental
trauma and offspring attachment insecurity (Ainsworth & Eichberg, 1991; Bakermans-
Kranenburg, Schuengel, & van Ijzendoorn, 1999; Main & Hesse, 1990; and Schuengel,
van Ijzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Blom, 1998). However, this literature
primarily focused on traumatized mothers and their young offspring. Steele, Steele, and
F onagy (1996) conducted one of the few studies to examine the relationship between
paternal traumatization as well as maternal traumatization on infants’ attachment styles.
They found that maternal unresolved loss or trauma was related to infant disorganized
attachment, but no such relationship was found for paternal unresolved loss or trauma.
Benoit and Parker (1994) were the only researchers to examine the relationship between
parental trauma and attachment security for adults. Benoit and Parker did not ﬁnd a
relationship between grandmothers’ unresolved trauma (as assessed by the AAI) and their
adult daughters’ attachment security (a1 so assessed by the AAI). The present study, in
contrast, did ﬁnd relationships between parents’ trauma and their adult oﬁ’spring’s
attachment security. These contrasting ﬁndings may be due to differences in
measurement (in parents’ trauma as well as offspring’s attachment), population
diﬂ’erences (Benoit & Parker did not study children of Holocaust survivors) or the timing

of the trauma. It is possible that the grandmothers’ unresolved trauma in the Benoit and

101

Parker study was from an event late in life, which did not affect their offspring’s
attachment security.

The current study extends this research by providing evidence for the relationship
between traumatized parents and their adult otfspring’s attachment security. Adults are
underrepresented in the current literature on the intergenerational effects of trauma on
attachment security. Finally, the current study is speciﬁc to Holocaust survivors and their
children. It is the ﬁrst empirical study of the attachment security of children of Holocaust
survivors, and how this security is affected by perceptions of parents’ trauma.

The current study also supports and extends the literature on COS. Yehuda,
Schmiedler, Elkin, et a1. (1998) noted that “the literature on the oﬁ’spring of Holocaust
survivors is divided into two ‘camps’: those who described the adverse effects of the
Holocaust, and those failing to note these detrimental effects.” (p. 640). They attributed
this dichotomy to the heterogeneity of the population, and suggested that ﬁrture research
should explore within-group variability in parental symptomatology to determine if that
clariﬁed some of the disparate ﬁndings in the research literature. The present study was
conducted to determine if within-group variability in COS’ attachment security could be
explained by their perceptions of their parents’ traumatization. Analyses supported this
proposition and revealed that children of survivors are a heterogeneous population, and
should not be treated as homogeneous.

While much of the clinical literature on COS has revealed evidence of
psychopathology in this population, these ﬁndings have not typically been borne out by
empirical research utilizing COS from the general population rather than clinic samples.

The current study, which did not use a help-seeking sample, found no differences in the

102

current sample of COS and a previous sample of college students on their overall ratings
of attachments to their partners. As noted previously, while there were no diﬂ'erences
between these groups overall, differences in attachment security for COS could be seen
when perceived parental Holocaust traumatization was taken into consideration. It was
only those participants who saw their parents as more traumatized who had
correspondingly lower levels of attachment security to their parents and partners.

Mazor and Tal (1996) found that COS demonstrated higher levels of
psychological interconnectedness than a control group (as measured by the MIS). The
children of survivors in the present study had similarly high levels of psychological
interconnectedness. This level of emotional dependency on family of origin echoes the
work of Brom, Kﬁr, and Dasberg (2001) who found that COS had greater difﬁculty with
separation and individuation in their relationships with their partners and children.

Dasberg (1987) concluded in his review of the literature that COS lack
psychosocial maturity and feel that they have to be high achievers to compensate for what
has been lost. These conclusions found some support in the current study. High scores
on psychological interconnectedness, which were found in this sample, may be indicative
of a lower level of psychosocial maturity. There is also some support for Dasberg’s
conclusion that this population tends to be high achievers. The Current sample was
highly educated, with an average of nearly 18 years of education (equivalent to a masters
degree). However, the motivation for this high level of achievement cannot be
determined from the present study. Last (1988) also reviewed studies that found that
COS were more dependent than the general population. Dependency, like psychosocial

maturity, appears to be related to psychological interconnectedness.

The present study is the ﬁrst to assess parental traumatization from the
perspective of the offspring of Holocaust survivors (with the exception of Blumenthal,
1981, who used a primitive measure). Since much of the research on adult attachment
theory is dependent on the perceptions of offspring about their parents, this is a crucial
step in linking these two areas of research. Research on adult attachment theory utilizes
perceptions of early parenting experiences to categorize adults into attachment categories.
Recent research in this area has asked adults about speciﬁc experiences of loss and
trauma. The adult attachment literature has not yet developed a measure of perceptions
of parents’ trauma.

Theoretical Implications

Attachment theory has provided strong evidence for the link between unresolved
parental trauma and offspring’s attachment security. The present study conﬁrmed this
link and extended previous ﬁndings. There is now evidence for a relationship between
the oﬂspring ’s perceptions of parental trauma (as compared to the parents’ or
researchers’ perspective) and attachment security. The research literature on attachment
theory has tended to focus on mothers and their young (infant and toddler) children. The
present study extends these ﬁndings to adult offspring, and examines relationships with
and perceptions of mothers and fathers.

The research literature on children of Holocaust survivors has been plagued with
contradictory ﬁndings. Some research, (particularly the clinical, anecdotal literature), has
concluded that children of Holocaust survivors present with more psychopathology than
the general population. Other research, (particularly the empirical literature), has found

few differences between children of survivors and control groups. The present study

104

utilized a non-clinical sample of children of survivors to examine within-group
diﬂ‘erences in this population. As a result, the present study was able to extend the
knowledge base about this population by demonstrating within-group differences in
attachment security as predicted by perceived parental Holocaust traumatization. The
present study was also the ﬁrst to empirically demonstrate a link between perceived
parental Holocaust traumatization and security of attachment to parent and partner.
Research Implications

The present study was the ﬁrst to utilize a novel measure of perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization. In the present study as well as the previous pilot study, this
measure has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity. Its development may be
useﬁrl to other researchers examining the impact of the Holocaust. Particularly since the
survivors of the Holocaust are themselves growing more elderly, it is important to be able
to measure the impact of their experiences on the next generation.

The present study was also the ﬁrst to use the ECR as a dependent variable rather
than as a predictive variable. This is somewhat surprising since much of the theory lends
itself to predicting attachment security.

The P-AASQ was also used in a novel way in the current study. This relatively
new instrument (Behrens & Lopez, 1998) had previously been used in a study with the
ECR (Lopez & Hsu, 2002). However, that study categorized participants on the basis of
which paragraph they selected. In contrast, in the present study the responses were
scored continuously, providing for more robust ﬁndings. The P-AASQ scores in the

present study could easily be utilized in correlational or regression analyses.

105

 

The current study demonstrated that there are within-group differences in children
of survivors’ perceptions of their parents’ Holocaust traumatization. However, these
differences are not determined by how the parents spent the Holocaust. Therefore, ﬁrture
research should not use a priori deﬁnitions of parental trauma as has been done
previously.

Applied Implications

The current study has some interesting implications for practice. In contrast to
some of the clinical literature, these results call into question the notion that COS per se
possess more psychopathology than the general population. In fact, the current sample
had similar levels of attachment security as a college population (Lopez, Mitchell, &
Gormley, 2002). However, some COS do experience more difﬁculties than others.

These diﬁiculties manifest themselves in the offspring’s attachments to their parents and
partners, and in their ability to psychologically separate ﬁom their family of origin.
Clinicians working with this population would do well to assess COS’ perceptions of
their parents’ traumatization rather than making assumptions about it.

Design and Internal Validity

The current study was correlational in nature and therefore it is not possible to say
that perceived parental trauma causes attachment insecurity. It is possible that causation
was actually in the opposite direction, and that individuals who are insecurely attached to
their parent and/or partner perceive their parents as more traumatized by the Holocaust.
However, the current formulation is supported by the literature on attachment theory.
Other, prospective studies, have already determined that unresolved parental loss or

trauma is associated with offspring’s attachment insecurity.

l06

 

 

Although Solkoff (198 1, 1982) recommended that studies of COS should utilize
control groups before making inferences about this population, the current study did not
do so. The rationale for this decision was that there is currently a lack of clarity in the
literature about within-group differences, and so the current study focused on explicating
some of those differences. Therefore, on the basis of this research, it is not possible to
say whether the current sample differed in any meaningful way from individuals who
were not children of Holocaust survivors.

External Validity and Generalizability

The current study attempted to correct for some of the generalizability issues in
previous research by using a non-clinical sample. Participants from all over the country
completed the surveys both online and in mailed packets. They were recruited from
children of Holocaust survivor organizations, Jewish newspapers, and online list serves
and websites. As a result, many of the participants may have strongly identiﬁed with the
concept of themselves as children of survivors. It is possible that a more
epidemiologically based recruiting method would have resulted in a sample of
participants who did not view their COS status as centrally as did the current sample.
Unfortunately, there is no national registry of Holocaust survivors or their children in the
United States, so unless the research was done in Israel, where such a list exists, an
epidemiological study would have been quite challenging.

Another issue potentially affecting external validity in the current study is the
issue of gender diﬂ‘erences. Many more women (70%) than men (28%) completed the
surveys. Although no gender differences were found for most of the study variables, they

were present for the Psychological Interconnectedness subscale of the Multigenerational

107

Interconnectedness Scale. Since this subscale was strongly correlated with the ECR as
well as the PPHTS, it is possible that gender differences indirectly inﬂuenced the overall
ﬁndings. The regression models controlled for gender in order to take this possibility
into account. Gender was not a signiﬁcant predictor in the regression analyses.
Measurement Issues

There were several difﬁculties with measurement in the current study. These
ranged ﬁ'om including all of the potentially important variables in the demographic
questionnaire to using instruments not speciﬁcally designed for this population. The
demographic questionnaire gathered data on many potentially relevant issues for this
population. However, as the analyses progressed, it became clear that other data would
also have been helpﬁrl. While there were a number of choices for participants to indicate
their marital status, there was no way to indicate if they were in a gay or lesbian
committed relationship. Also, there were no items assessing whether participants’
parents were still alive or whether they had siblings also completing the surveys. All of
this information would have been helpﬁrl for the analyses.

There were also some difﬁculties with the instruments, as most were not designed
speciﬁcally for this population. The ECR, P-AASQ, and MIS were all designed for late
adolescents/college students. The MIS has previously been utilized with adult children of
Holocaust survivors and the directions were even modiﬁed in order to provide clarity for
these participants who have mostly created their own families. However, many
participants in the current study still reported ﬁnding it frustrating and a large number of
participants did not complete it. In retrospect, Skowron & Friedlanders’ (1998)

Differentiation of Self Inventory might have been a better choice than the MIS as it was

108

initially validated on an adult population. Unfortunately, there are very few instruments
designed speciﬁcally for this population. A thorough review of the literature yielded no
suitable measure of parental traumatization, and so the PPHT S was developed for this
study. The ECR is the best current measure of adult attachment using survey
methodology. The present study did not utilize a measure of social desirability, which
may have also inﬂuenced the results.
A utobiographical Material

Participants were asked to respond to three open-ended questions in the
Demographic Questionnaire. These included questions about the nature of their parents’
losses, their perceptions of how these losses impacted the way they were patented, and
whether these perceptions have changed over time. Responses ranged from one-word
answers to narrative essays. To protect participants’ conﬁdentiality, their direct quotes
are nOt provided here. Instead, relevant samples are drawn from the literature.

Parents ’ losses

Participants responded to the following direction: “Please describe to the best of
your knowledge the types of losses your parent experienced during the Holocaust.” They
spoke of losing entire families, of losing one’s country and belongings. It was common
for the parents of participants to be the only surviving members of their families.
These responses demonstrate some of the extent of the losses suffered by the families of
the participants. Many noted the impact of the loss of a parent or parents for their own
parents during the Holocaust. Some participants went on to speculate as to the impact of
the loss of a parent on their own parent’s childrearing abilities. Hass (1990) indicated

that in addition to the loss of family members, many survivors “returned to their homes to

109

encounter hostility and conﬁscation of their property by the local population” (p. 22).
Wiesel (1960) eloquently described the many losses that he experienced in the Holocaust.
He and his family lost their home, and then he was separated from his mother and sisters
at Auschwitz. Immediately upon his arrival there, he was deliberately and systematically
de-humanized and brutalized. He reported that he lost much of his soul and his faith,
along with most of his immediate family.

Impact of Losses on Parenting

The next question asked “Do you think that your parents’ losses impacted the way
you were parented by them? If so, how?” Most participants did feel that their parents’
losses had impacted their parenting, and some speciﬁcally felt that the loss of a parental
role-model negatively impacted their parents’ ability to raise them. Hass (1990)
interviewed COS and obtained parallel responses: Normal, developmental separations
may have been too much to endure for some Holocaust survivor parents, so that their
children had difﬁculty establishing their own identities. Hass also noted that nearly every
COS he interviewed indicated that their perceptions of the world could be characterized
by “fear, mistrust, [and] cynicism.” (p. 37). He provided many examples of his
participants’ interviews in which they described how their parents instilled a sense of fear
and suspicion in them regarding the outside world. Many reported that they were taught
the value of education, as that was something that could never be taken ﬁ'om them. Like
the participants in the current study, Hass himself as well as his participants describe a
keen sense of guilt over any display of negative feelings. He reported frequently hearing,
“For this I survived the camps?” (p. 51). This refrain could be expected in response to

talking back, coming home later than planned, or being injured. Epstein (1979),

110

describing her ﬁrst interview for her book Children of the Holocaust, noted that all ﬁve
participants in her initial interview (including herself) were named after people murdered
during the war. Wardi (1994) characterized this phenomenon as “memorial candles”, the
process in which the second generation physically represents lost family members.

Change in Perceptions over Time

The ﬁnal open-ended question asked “Have your perceptions of your parents’
traumatization by the Holocaust changed over time? Do you have a different
understanding now of your parents’ traumatization than you didas a child or
adolescent?” Most of the participants indicated that their perceptions of their parents’
trauma had changed over time. They seemed to gain a deeper understanding and
appreciation of their parents’ experiences as they grew older. In some cases, this was due
to their parents’ sharing more information with the passage of time. Many expressed.
increased respect and admiration for their parents and what they had survived. Epstein
(1979) provided several anecdotes of COS who found out much more about their parents’
experiences during the Holocaust when the COS themselves were adults.

Neumann (1997) described the transformation of her perceptions of her mother’s
Holocaust experience in several stages. She initially constructed a story of her mother’s
experiences ﬁ'om fragments told to her by her mother, combined with her own thoughts
and images. Later, as an adult, she began more formally interviewing her mother about
her experiences. These transcribed interviews formed the second stage of Neumann’s
perceptions. A third stage developed from Neumann’s mother’s account of her

experiences in the process of obtaining reparations from the German government. This

account was the most detailed telling of the experience. Neumann noted that she came

111

“closer in myself to the story I know of my mother’s life, and she too has come closer to
me.” (p. 105).

Participants in this study provided a wealth of qualitative information through
these three open-ended questions. They indicated that their parents had experienced
tremendous losses of their families, friends, businesses and homes. Most felt that these
losses negatively impacted their parents’ ability to raise them. However, a few indicated
just the opposite. The participants who wrote of their parents’ optimism, empathy for
others, and activism are examples of this.

Future Directions

The current study successfully demonstrated that within-group differences do
exist within the COS population. Future studies should take these differences into
account when examining this population, and then could use control groups more
appropriately. For example, it might be interesting to compare the attachment security of
children of survivors with the attachment security of children of parents traumatized in
other ways. It would also be useful to determine if the ﬁndings from the current study
could be replicated in other cultures. There are large populations of COS in Israel and
Australia, among other places, and it is not clear if cultural differences might affect the
results. An Israeli sample would offer some unique research possibilities, including the
option of utilizing an epidemiological approach, and the possibility of examining the
impact of communal living for those who were raised on kibbutzim. Alternatively, one
could examine the attachment styles of children of survivors of other genocides, to

determine if they were affected similarly.

112

It would be helpﬁrl to replicate some of the ﬁndings on the relationships between
the background variables and the main study variables. These include the impact of the
survivors’ country of origin and age at the time of the Holocaust. The relationship
between the use of therapy and perceptions of parental Holocaust traumatization as well
as attachment to partner could also be further explored.

It would be particularly helpful for future research to focus on developing a
reliable and valid self-report measure of adult attachment that is designed for adults, in
contrast to college students. While much of the current research on adult attachment is
focused on college students due to convenience, there is much valuable information to be
learned about older adults.

The current study was not focused on examining psychopathology within this
population. It is possible that ﬁrture studies could determine if perceived parental
traumatization is linked to difﬁculties in offspring’s functioning other than attachment
security.

Given the high preponderance of female participants in the current study, it would
be useful for future studies to obtain a more equal representation of males and females.
This might also help clarify the surprising ﬁnding that attachment to father was a stronger
predictor of attachment to partner than was attachment to mother.

Summary

It was the intent of this study to investigate the link between perceived parental
Holocaust traumatization and attachment security. This research has provided evidence
of this link, and developed a predictive model of attachment to partner for this

population. Marital status, perceived parental Holocaust traumatization, attachment to

113

father, and psychological interconnectedness with family of origin were all found to
predict attachment to romantic partner. Hopefully, this study will stimulate ﬁrture

research on the effects of the Holocaust on the attachment security of ﬁxture generations.

114

APPENDICES

115

Appendix A
Demographic Questionnaijg
Thank you for agreeing to participate in my research project. The following
questions ask about your background and about the background of your
parent(s). Please circle the appropriate number under each of the items below or
enter the correct information in the blank spaces that are provided.

1. Name:

 

2. Your sex: (circle one) 3. Your current age:
(1) Male
(2) Female

4. How many years of education have you completed?
5. What is the highest educational degree you have attained?

6. What is your marital status?
(1) married and living with spouse
(2) separated
(3) never married
(4) divorced
(5) widowed

7. Which of your parents is a Holocaust survivor?
(1) Mother
(2) Father
(3) Both

8. In what country were your parents born?
Mother:
Father:

 

 

9. How old were your parents when the Holocaust began?
Mother: Father:
(1) Child (0-12 years) (1) Child (0-12 years)
(2) Adolescent (13-18) (2) Adolescent (13—18)
(3) Adult (over 18) (3) Adult (over 18)
(4) Don’t know (4) Don’t know
(5) Does not apply (5) Does not apply

116

10

11

12

1

0)

14

15

 

 

. Where were your parents during the Holocaust (please circle all that apply):
Mother: Father:
(1) Concentration Camp (1) Concentration Camp
(2) Labor Camp (2) Labor Camp
(3) Ghetto (3) Ghetto
(4) In hiding (4) ln hiding
(5) Other: (5) Other:
(6) Don’t know (6) Don’t know
(7) Does not apply (7) Does not apply

. Where did your parents go immediately after the Holocaust? (i.e. - to the
U.S., Israel, Brazil, etc.)
Mother: Father:

 

. During the Holocaust, what was your parents' identiﬁed religion? If possible,
please specify (Orthodox Jew, Conservative Jew, nonreligiouslsecular,
etc.)

Mother: Father:

 

. Please rate your perception of your parents level of religiosity during the
Holocaust. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not at all religious and 5 being
very devout/observant.

Mother: Father:

 

. Have you or your parents (to your knowledge) ever sought professional help
for issues related to the Holocaust (e.g., counseling, psychotherapy)?

(1) Self

(2) Mother

(3) Father

(4) Sibling(s)

(5) Family therapy

(6) No one in my family has ever sought this type of help.
(7) Don’t know .

. Please describe to the best of your knowledge the types of losses your
parent experienced during the Holocaust.

 

 

 

 

117

16. Do you think that your parents' losses impacted the way you were parented
by them? If so, how?

 

 

 

17. Have your perceptions of your parents' traumatization by the Holocaust
changed over time? Do you have a different understanding now of your
parents' traumatization than you did as a child or adolescent?

 

 

 

118

Appendix B

PPHTS
Directions: Under each item is a scale, with items ranging from 1-5. Think about how these items
applied to you as you were growing up. Please circle a 1 for those impressions of your parent that did not
apply to your experiences, a 2, for those which apply sometimes, a 3 for those about which you are unsure,
a 4 for those which apply fairly often, and a 5 for those which apply all the time. Please note: The first
portion of this questionnaire refers to your impressions of your mother and the second portion to
your father. If only one of your parents is a survivor of the Holocaust, please ﬁll out only that section
which applies to that parent.

Perceptions of Mother’s Experiences

 

1. My mother had difﬁculty talking about the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

2. My mother could talk about the Holocaust in general terms, but not about her speciﬁc experiences.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

3. My mother avoided any public activity related to the Holocaust (museums, survivor groups, etc.).

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

4. I think that my mother recovered fairly well from the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

5. My mother was plagued by recurring nightmares of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

6. My mother tended to talk about the Holocaust in very speciﬁc detail.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

7. I feel that I have a fairly accurate understanding of my mother‘s life before and during the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

8. My mother never spoke of her Holocaust experience.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

119

9. My mother was prone to unexplained bouts of depression.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

10. My primary way of knowing of my mother's Holocaust experience is through small bits of
conversation, things leﬁ unsaid, and my own imagination.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

11. I feel that my mother told me about her Holocaust experience in ways that matched my ability to
understand as I was growing up.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

12. My mother willingly spoke about her Holocaust experience to educate others (schools, synagogues,
etc.).

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

13. As I was growing up, my mother discouraged discussion of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

14. When I was growing up, I heard many stories about the Holocaust on a regular basis.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

15. I think that my mother‘s personality was forever changed by the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

16. I often wonder what really happened to my mother during the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

17. I think that my mother grew to be a stronger person because of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

18. My mother continually mourned family members lost in the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

19. My mother appeared driven to repeat stories of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

20. My mother appeared to react to things much less emotionally than other mothers I knew.

I 2 . 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

21. The trauma of the Holocaust left an indelible mark on my mother’s personality.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

22. In my opinion, my mother never "came to terms" with the trauma she suffered during the war.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

23. My mother's Holocaust experience created an enduring sense of emptiness and loss in her life.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

24. My mother appeared to react to things much more emotionally than other mothers I knew.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

25. My mother was preoccupied with thoughts of family members lost in the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

26. My mother seemed to be shut down emotionally.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

27. My mother avoided anything related to the Holocaust in the home (books, movies, etc.).

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

121

Perceptions of Father’s Experiences

 

1. My father had difﬁculty talking about the Holocaust.

1 2 3 ' 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

2. My father could talk about the Holocaust in general terms, but not about his speciﬁc experiences.

1 >2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

3. My father avoided any public activity related to the Holocaust (i.e., museums, survivor groups, etc.)

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

4. I think that my father recovered fairly well from the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

5. My father was plagued by recurring nightmares of the Holocaust.

I 2 ‘ 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

6. My father tended to talk about the Holocaust in very speciﬁc detail.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true _ very true

7. I feel that I have a fairly accurate understanding of my father's life before and during the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

8. My father never spoke of his Holocaust experience.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

9. My father was prone to unexplained bouts of depression.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

10. I‘ve developed a picture of my father's Holocaust experience through small bits of conversation, things
left unsaid, and my own imagination.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

122

11. I feel that my father told me about his Holocaust experience in ways that matched my ability to
understand as I was growing up.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

12. My father willingly spoke about his Holocaust experience to educate others (schools, synagogues,
etc.).

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

13. As I was growing up, my father discouraged discussion of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

14. When I was growing up, I heard many stories about the Holocaust on a regular basis.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

15. I think that my father's personality was forever changed by the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

16. I often wonder what really happened to my father during the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

17. I think that my father grew to be a stronger person because of the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

18. My father continually mourned family members lost in the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true ' very true

19. My father appeared driven to repeat stories of the Holocaust.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

20. My father appeared to react to things much less emotionally than other fathers I knew.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

21. The trauma of the Holocaust left an indelible mark on my father's personality.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

123

22. In my opinion, my father never "came to terms" with the trauma he suffered during the war.

1 2 3 4 A 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

23. My father's Holocaust experience created an enduring sense of emptiness and loss in his life.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

24. My father appeared to react to things much more emotionally than other fathers I knew.

I 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

25. My father was preoccupied with thoughts of family members lost in the Holocaust.

l 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

26. My father seemed to be shut down emotionally.

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

27 . My father avoided anything related to the Holocaust in the home (books, movies, etc.).

1 2 3 4 5
very false mostly false not sure mostly true very true

124

Appendix C

ECR

Instructions: The following statements concern how you feel in romantic relationships.
We are interested in how you generally experience relationships, not just in what is
happening in a current relationship. Respond to each statement by indicating how
much you agree or disagree with it. Write the number in the space provided, using
the following rating scale.

Disagree N eutral/ M ixed Agree
Strongly . Strongly

LLLLLLLUJ.

O

p—Ip—I
NH

___13.
14.
15.
16.
_17.
_18.
19.
_____2o.

21.
_22.
___23.

24.
_25.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down.

I worry about being abandoned.

I am very comfortable being close to romantic partners.

I worry a lot about my relationships.

Just when my partner starts to get close to me, I ﬁnd myself pulling away.

I worry that romantic partners won't care about me as much as I care about them.
I am uncomfortable when a romantic partner wants to be close.

I worry a fair amount about losing my partner.

I don't feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners.

. I often wish that my partner's feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for

him/her.

. I want to get close to my partner, but I keep pulling back.
. I often want to merge completely with romantic partners, and this sometimes

scares them away.

I am nervous when partners get too close to me.

I worry about being alone.

I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with my partner.
My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away.

I try to avoid getting too close to my partner.

I need a lot of reassurance that I am loved by my partner.

I ﬁnd it relatively easy to get close to my partner.

Sometimes I feel that I force my partners to show more feeling, more
commitment.

I ﬁnd it difficult to allow myself to depend on romantic partners.

I do not often worry about being abandoned.

I prefer not to be too close to romantic partners.

IfI can’t get my partner to show interest in me, I get upset or angry.
I tell my partner just about everything.

ECR

Page 2

Disagree Neutral/Mixed Agree

Strongly Strongly
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

_26. I ﬁnd that my partner(s) don't want to get as close as I would like.
_27. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with my partner.

_28. When I'm not involved in a relationship, I feel somewhat anxious and insecure.
_29. I feel comfortable depending on romantic partners.

_30. I get frustrated when my partner is not around as much as I would like.
_31. I don't mind asking romantic partners for comfort, advice, or help.
_32. I get frustrated if romantic partners are not available when I need them.
_33. It helps to turn to my romantic partner in times of need.

_34. When romantic partners disapprove of me, I feel really bad about myself.
_35. I turn to my partner for many things, including comfort and reassurance.
_36. I resent it when my partner spends time away from me.

126

Appendix D
P-AAS

The items on this page refer to your relationship with your mother. If you have more than
one person who could be classiﬁed as your mother, think about the person with whom
you have had the most contact over the course of your life.

When reference is made to “mother” I will be thinking of my:
(1) biological mother
(2) stepmother
(3) adoptive mother
(4) foster mother
(5) other

 

Directions: Read each paragraph below and then, using the scale provided below, choose a
number from 1 to 7 to rate how descriptive each paragraph is of your relationship with your
mother.

 

Scale: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
not at all extremely
descriptive descriptive

 

Rate Each Most Descriptive
(Scale of 1-7) (Check one only)

1. It is easy for me to become emotionally
close to my mother. I am comfortable
depending on her and having her
depend on me. I don’t worry about
being abandoned by her or having her
not accept me

2. I am comfortable with got having a close
relationship with my mother. It is very
important for me to feel independent
from her and self-sufﬁcient, and I
prefer not to depend on her or have
her depend on me

3. I want an emotionally close relationship
with my mother, but I often ﬁnd that she
is reluctant to get as close as I would
like. I am uncomfortable being without
a close relationship with her and I
sometimes worry that she doesn’t value
me as much as I value her..............

4. I am uncomfortable getting close to
my mother. I want an emotionally
close relationship with her, but I ﬁnd
it difﬁcult to trust her completely
or to depend on her. I worry that
I will be hurt if I allow myself to
become too close to her......

P-AASQ

The items on this page refer to your relationship with your father. If you have more than
one person who could be classiﬁed as your father, think about the person with whom you
have had the most contact over the course of your life.

When reference is made to “father" I will be thinking of my:
biological father

stepfather

adoptive father

foster father

other

91:599.”?

 

Directions: Read each paragraph below and then, using the scale provided below, choose a
number from 1 to 7 to rate how descriptive each paragraph is of your relationship with your father.

 

Scale: 1 2 3 4 5 Q 7
not at all extremely
descriptive descriptive

 

Rate Each Most Descriptive
(Scale of 1-7) (Check one only)

1. It is easy for me to become emotionally
close to my father. I am comfortable
depending on him and having him
depend on me. I don‘t worry about
being abandoned ”by him or having him
not accept me.. .

2. I am comfortable with 10; having a close
relationship with my father. It is very
important for me to feel independent
from him and self-sufﬁcient, and I
prefer not to depend on him or have
him depend on me

3. I want an emotionally close relationship
with my father, but I often ﬁnd that he
is reluctant to get as close as I would
like. I am uncomfortable being without
a close relationship with him and I
sometimes wow that he doesn‘t value
me as much as I value him..............

4. I am uncomfortable getting close to
my father. I want an emotionally
close relationship with him, but I find
it difﬁcult to trust him completely
or to depend on her. I worry that
I will be hurt if I allow myself to
become too close to him..............

Appendix E

PLEASE INDICATE HOW OFTEN YOU EXPERIENCE THE FOLLOWING THINGS
WITH MEMBERS OF YOUR FAMILY OF ORIGIN. KEEP IN MJND THERE ARE
NO CORRECT ANSWERS. PLEASE CIRCLE THE BEST ANSWER. REMEIVIBER,
THESE QUESTIONS PERTAIN TO YOUR FAMILY OF ORIGIN.

RESPONSE CHOICES
l 2 3 4 5 6 7
Never Sometimes Always

1. I feel upset when family members do not approve of people I am intimate with.
2 , 3 4 5 6 7

2. I feel guilty about continuing a relationship with someone family members do not like.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3. When I am told that a family member disapproves of something I have done, I feel
obligated to change what I am doing
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4. I rely on family members' approval to let me know I am doing things right.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5. I feel obligated to spend time with family.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. If I did not follow advice that a family member offered, I would feel guilty.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. I feel guilty when I do not take the side of a family member in a disagreement with
others. .
l 2 3 4 5 6 7

8. When family members ask me to do certain things, I feel guilty when I have to say no.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

9. I become upset when family members criticize my behavior.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10. I ask whether or not family members approve of people I am intimate with.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. I feel obligated to stop associating with friends my family members do not like.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

129

RESPONSE CHOICES
l 2 . 3 4 5 6 7
Never Sometimes Always
12. When I am told I have done something which hurt other family members I feel
guilty.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
13. I become upset at the thought of telling a family member they are interfering in my
life.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14. There are certain things I do for members of my family because I have an obligation
to.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
15. I choose friends that family members will like and feel comfortable with.
l 2 . 3 4 5 6 7
16. Family members help me pay for large transportation costs (bus, airfare, etc.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

17. I pay for my own clothing. .
2 3 4 5 6 7

18. Family members help me pay for major life expenses.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

19. Family members give me money to spend on pleasurable things for myself.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

20. Family members help me pay for necessary purchases.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

21. Family members buy me things I need but have not yet bought myself.
1 2 A 3 4 5 6 7

22. I pay for my own car expenses.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

130

RESPONSE CHOICES
l 2 3 4 5 6 7
Never Sometimes Always

23. I am able to borrow money from family members when I am short of cash.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

24. Family members watch TV. and go to the movies with me.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

25. I am involved in hobbies (ﬁshing, sewing, gardening) with family members.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

26. Family members spend leisure time with me doing nothing in particular.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

27. I help family members with everyday household duties and cleaning.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

28. I help family members with chores and tasks (home, and auto repair, moving, etc.).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

29. Family members are involved in sports and recreational activities with me.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

30. I take vacations with members of my family.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

31. I ask for family members’ advice when I am dealing with difﬁculties.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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