Children During the Nazi Reign: Psychological Perspective on the Interview Process

This work shows how interviews help child survivors of the Jewish experience during World War II. It is unique in that it features different aspects of the interviewer-interviewee relationship. The contributions are personal as well as analytical in nature, and the narrative is an informed psychological analysis. The work should be of interest to Holocaust centers, researchers, oral historians, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, and trauma researchers as well as survivors.

Table of Contents:
Preface: Tribute to Milton Kestenberg, by Judith S. Kestenberg Acknowledgments Introduction by Eva Fogelman The Interview Process Overview of the Effect of Psychological Research Interviews on Child Survivors by Judith S. Kestenberg Narration as a Construction of Identity by Ilka Quindeau Effect of Interviews on Child Survivors The Effect of Interviews on Child Survivors--Child Survivors Revisited by Milton Kestenberg A Follow up Study: Child Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust Reflect on Being Interviewed by Eva Fogelman and Flora Hogman Effects of Interviews with Rescued Child Survivors by Eva Fogelman Can the Rancored and the Ravaged Receive Relief from the Rigors of Research? by Charlotte Kahn The Combined Effect of Interviews and Group Participation by the Interviewer by Joan Seif Levi Professional Child Survivors Reflect on Their Own Interview A Child Survivor's Appraisal of His Own Interview by Paul Valent A Fortuitous Meeting: An Interviewee Becomes an Interviewer by Vera Treplin On Being Interviewed About the Holocaust by Eva Fishell Lichtenberg Interviewers Look at Themselves The Effects of Interviews on Child Survivors and on the Interviewers in Israel by Dr. Yolanda Gampel and Aviva Mazor The Interviewer as Witness: Counter-Transference, Reactions, and Techniques by Helene Bass-Wichelhaus A First Interview With a Child Survivor of the Holocaust by Regine Podrizki Epilogue by Eva Fogelman Index

About the Author :
JUDITH S. KESTENBERG was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University. She was Founder of Child Development Research (affiliated with Tel-Aviv University), Co-Director and Co-Founder of the International Study of Organized Persecution of Children, and Co-Founder of Group for the Psychoanalytic Study of the Effect of the Holocaust on the Second Generation. EVA FOGELMAN is a Social Psychologist and Psychotherapist in private practice, and a senior research fellow at the Center for Social Research at CUNY. She is Codirector of Psychotherapy with Generations of the Holocaust and Related Traumas, Training Institute for Mental Health, and is author of Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.

Review :
"Kestenberg and Fogelman, after many years of work and study of this field, have produced a spectacular, novel approach...Dealing with people who have been severely traumatized in childhood is dangerous. One can cause harm just by listening...Somehow the authors and editors managed to steer safely in these dangerous currents. We can only admire and try to emulate this pioneering effort."-Henry Krystal, M.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry Michigan State University