A Biographical Case Study of a Victimizer's Daughter's Strategy: Pseudo-Identification With the Victims of the Holocaust

Rosenthal, Gabriele; Bar-On, Dan

doi:10.1075/jnlh.2.2.02bio

Article published In: Journal of Narrative and Life History
Vol. 2:2 (1992) ► pp.105–127

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A Biographical Case Study of a Victimizer's Daughter's Strategy: Pseudo-Identification With the Victims of the Holocaust

Gabriele Rosenthal | Department of Behavioral Sciences Ben Gurion University

Dan Bar-On | Department of Behavioral Sciences Ben Gurion University

Published online: 4 August 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.2.2.02bio

Abstract Previous studies have shown that many children of former Nazi perpetrators either identify with their parents by denying their atrocities, by distancing them-selves emotionally from their parents, or by acknowledging their participation in the extermination process. Through a hermeneutical case study of the narrated life story of a Euthanasia physician's daughter, a type of strategy, which we defined as pseudo-identification with the victim, is reconstructed. The results of the analysis suggest that this is a repair strategy. Putting oneself in the role of one's parents' victim provides refuge from acknowledging possible identification with Nazism and its idols, as well as identifying oneself with the real victims of one's parents. In this case, the psychological consequences of this strategy are described: The woman still suffers from extermination anxieties which block further working through of the past. (Behavioral Sciences)

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